Sprechen Sie MATLAB?
By: Katie Ewing
After our first MATLAB Software Carpentry at the University of Melbourne last week, 45 research students can now answer that with a resounding “JA!”
The demand for a MATLAB course was strong, and like many of our bootcamps, this one sold out early (with a wait list of over 25 people!). Braced with the new teaching material, new instructors, a new venue, and new T-shirts (thanks, MathWorks!), we set off to deliver just the second MATLAB Software Carpentry worldwide.
Our teaching team was busy on the first day as many of the participants had never seen or used MATLAB before. Learning the interface and syntax of a new programming language can be tricky enough, but adding challenging exercises on top of that made for a very long Day 1!
Our volunteer @swcarpentry #matlab tutors are hard at work! Thanks tutors! #ResBaz @ITS_Res https://t.co/FFexdWspje
— Damien Irving (@DrClimate)August 18, 2014
The second and third days covered the standard Software Carpentry lessons on the Unix shell and version control, which by now Damien probably knows like the back of his hand! But new on Day 3 was an introduction to high performance and parallel computing in MATLAB by our HPC expert, Bernard. He even gave an impromptu crash course on using the Research Cloud!
Final session of the #matlab @swcarpentry bootcamp - an intro to #HPC. @ResPlat #ResBaz pic.twitter.com/8YXePvpxw2
— Damien Irving (@DrClimate)August 27, 2014
Based on feedback received throughout the bootcamp, we’ve decided to designate the new MATLAB teaching materials as our ‘intermediate’ level lessons (check out a complete review of the materials here). To better cater for MATLAB beginners, we are going to convert the novice-level Python Software Carpentry materials to MATLAB, courtesy of the lovely Isabell. These lessons should be better suited for researchers who are just getting started with MATLAB, so that they won’t feel like they are being thrown into the scripting and plotting deep end. We’ll review and refine this content with the goal of showcasing it at the #ResBaz conference in February!
Meanwhile…@Pixel_Dragon converts the #Python material to #MATLAB code. Bring on a novice @swcarpentry bootcamp! 😀 pic.twitter.com/ny2lDebE3o
— Research Platforms (@ResPlat)August 25, 2014
In other MATLAB news, 2014b will be released soon, loaded with tons of new features. Remember, every Melbourne Uni student is entitled to a free student license for their personal computer - see here for details. Großartig!
