The insane popularity of Software Carpentry

By Damien Irving.

Software Carpentry has exploded in popularity in recent years (check out the impressive map of previous bootcamps). The reasons for this success are threefold:

  1. We have a great teaching syllabus and wonderful volunteer instructors
  2. The research world is awash with data these days, and you really can’t tackle that data without knowing how to write code
  3. Researchers get very little exposure to programming in their formative years (high school, undergraduate degree, etc).  

I often find it difficult to convey to people just how popular Software Carpentry is, so this post will serve as a little archive of anecdotal evidence…. enjoy.