jkitzes

Summary of R-based Bootcamp Discussions

Summary

1. There is a general belief that SWC should be "language agnostic" and primarily teach the computing skills that transcend individual programming languages. These skills include data management, unit testing, version control, provenance/reproducibility, proper documentation, program design, and regular expressions.

2. SWC frequently receives requests for R-based workshops, and the SWC instructors agree that many scientists who wish to use R would benefit greatly from the skills that SWC teaches.

3. The biggest concern about R-based workshops is finding the instructor bandwidth to develop and maintain R-based lessons. There is a subset of existing SWC instructors, however, who are interested in developing and delivering workshops in R. If the SWC core lessons are kept largely language agnostic, the additional work required to maintain R-based lessons could be fairly small.