Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: Dec 2-5, 2025

The Carpentries project comprises the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and Library Carpentry communities of Instructors, Trainers, Maintainers, helpers, and supporters who share a mission to teach foundational computational and data science skills to researchers.

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Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. We do not require participants to provide documentation of disabilities or disclose any unnecessary personal information. However, we do want to help create an inclusive, accessible experience for all participants. We encourage you to share any information that would be helpful to make your Carpentries experience accessible. To request an accommodation for this workshop, please fill out the accommodation request form. If you have questions or need assistance with the accommodation form please email us.

Glosario is a multilingual glossary for computing and data science terms. The glossary helps learners attend workshops and use our lessons to make sense of computational and programming jargon written in English by offering it in their native language. Translating data science terms also provides a teaching tool for Carpentries Instructors to reduce barriers for their learners.

Workshop Recordings: Carpentries workshops are designed to be interactive rather than lecture-based, with lessons that build upon one another. To foster a positive online learning environment, we strongly recommend that participants join in real time. As a result, workshop recordings are not recommended and may not be available to learners.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.

Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.

Surveys

Schedule

Day 1 - Tuesday, 2nd of December - HG-95A29 (Hoofdgebouw/Main building, 9th floor)

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Day 2 - Wednesday, 3rd of December - HG-12A36 (Hoofdgebouw/Main building, 12th floor)

Before	Pre-workshop survey
09:30	Pre-course help with installations and setup
10:00	Introduction to programming in Python
11:20	Morning break
11:30	Introduction to programming in Python (Continued)
12:30	Lunch break
13:00	Analysing data with Python
14:00	Afternoon break
14:10	Plotting with Python
14:45	Wrap-up
15:00	END

10:00	Loops & Logic
11:20	Morning break
11:30	Loops & Logic (Continued)
12:30	Lunch break
12:30	Room change to BV-1H26, up one floor.
13:15	Writing functions in Python
14:00	Afternoon break
14:10	Debugging & Errors
14:45	Wrap-up
15:00	END

Day 3 - Thursday, 4th of December - HG-07A37 (Hoofdgebouw/Main building, 7th floor)

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Day 4 - Friday, 5th of December - BV-1H24 (BelleVUe, first floor)

10:00	Icebreaker
10:05	Files, folders, and paths in the unix shell
11:20	Morning break
11:30	Shell: Pipes and filters
12:30	Lunch break
13:00	Change room to HG-14A20 (Hoofdgebouw/Main building, 14th floor)
13:15	Introduction to Git
14:00	Afternoon break
14:10	Introduction to Git (Continued 2)
14:45	Wrap-up
15:00	END

10:00	Git in action
11:20	Morning break
11:30	Git for collaboration
12:30	Lunch break
13:15	Open science in programming
14:00	Afternoon break
14:10	Question time: clarifying issues
14:45	Wrap-up
15:00	Post-workshop Survey
15:10	END

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Setup

To participate in a Software Carpentry workshop, you will need access to software as described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Note for Windows Users

If you have used Windows Subsystem for Linux ("WSL2") please open your Ubuntu bash terminal and follow the Linux instructions for each of the software packages below.
If not, please follow the Windows instructions.

Git

Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com. You will need a supported web browser.

You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.

Git should be installed on your computer as part of your Bash install (see the Shell installation instructions).

Please open the Terminal app, type git --version and press Enter/Return. If it's not installed already, follow the instructions to Install the "command line developer tools". Do not click "Get Xcode", because that will take too long and is not necessary for our Git lesson. After installing these tools, there won't be anything in your /Applications folder, as they and Git are command line programs. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard" available here. (Note: this project is no longer maintained.) Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click Open in the pop-up dialog.

If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run sudo dnf install git.

Text Editor

When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is optimized for writing code, with features like automatic color-coding of key words. The default text editor on macOS and Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being intuitive. If you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, hit the Esc key, followed by :+q+! (colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to return to the shell.

nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It is installed along with Git.

nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open nano. It should be pre-installed.

nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It should be pre-installed.

Python

Python is a popular language for research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend Conda-forge, an all-in-one installer.

Regardless of how you choose to install it, please make sure you install a Python version >= 3.9 (e.g. 3.11 is fine, 3.6 is not).

We will teach Python using the Jupyter Notebook, a programming environment that runs in a web browser (Jupyter Notebook will be installed by Miniforge). For this to work you will need a reasonably up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers are all supported (some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9 and below, are not).

Before you start: Issues relating to OneDrive

OneDrive is used by many institutions to sync your user folder (C:\Users\[your-username]\) within an organisation. It may cause issues with the installation of the Carpentries environment.
If you have OneDrive set up, please ensure that you can access your C:\Users\[your-username]\Downloads folder:

Open File Explorer
Right click on the "Downloads" folder in the left-hand navigation pane
Select "Properties"
In the "Location" tab, ensure that the path is set to C:\Users\[your-username]\Downloads

If you encounter problems, please contact your IT support team and workshop organisers for assistance before the workshop.

Open https://conda-forge.org/download/ with your web browser.
Download the Miniforge for Windows installer
Double click on the downloaded file (Something like, Minforge3-Windows-x86_64.exe)

If you get a "Windows protected your PC" pop-up from Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, click on "More info" and select "Run anyway"

Follow through the installer using all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Add Miniforge3 to my PATH environment variable.
Then:
- EITHER:
  - Right click the following link and click "Save link as...": Carpentries environment file
  - Save the file to your C:\Users\[your-username]\Downloads folder.
  - Make sure that the filename is carpentries_environment.yml and the "Save as type" option is set to YML file (*.yml)
    The following steps requires using the Miniforge Prompt command line. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.
- OR:
  - Open Git Bash
  - cd ~/Downloads
  - curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carpentries/workshop-template/refs/heads/gh-pages/data/carpentries_environment.yml
Open your Start Menu from your taskbar, or use the Win Windows key.
Search for the application "Miniforge Prompt", and click the icon to open it.
- Once open, ensure the prompt shows your C:\Users\[your-username] folder. If it does, continue to Step 8 below:
  
  In this case, the prompt shows C:\Users\froggleston. Your username will be different!
- If it doesn't:
  - Find your username by typing whoami and press Enter
  - Your username will be shown as [machine-name]\[your-username]. You only need the [your-username] part after the slash, i.e. froggleston in this example.
  - Type cd C:\Users\[your-username] and press Enter
  - Continue to Step 8 below
- If you get stuck, please contact your workshop organisers to get assistance before the workshop starts.
In the Miniforge Prompt window, run the following commands:
- Type cd Downloads and press Enter
- Type conda env create -f carpentries_environment.yml and press Enter
The installation may take a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed. Once complete, you can close the Miniforge Prompt window.

Open https://conda-forge.org/download/ with your web browser.
Download the appropriate Miniforge installer for macOS
The following steps require using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.
Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where the executable is downloaded (e.g., cd ~/Downloads).
Type
```
bash Miniforge3-
```
and then press Tab to autocomplete the full file name. The name of file you just downloaded should appear. Press Enter (or Return depending on your keyboard).
Follow the text-only prompts in the terminal. To move through the text, press Spacebar.
- Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to approve the license.
- Press Enter (or Return) to approve the default location for the files.
- Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to prepend Miniforge to your PATH (this makes the Miniforge distribution the default Python).
Then:
- EITHER:
  - Right click the following link and click "Save link as...": Carpentries environment file
  - Save the file to your Downloads folder.
  - Make sure that the filename is carpentries_environment.yml and the "Save as type" is set to YML file (*.yml)
- OR :
  - Open your `bash` terminal
  - cd ~/Downloads
  - curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carpentries/workshop-template/refs/heads/gh-pages/data/carpentries_environment.yml
In the terminal, run: conda env create -f ~/Downloads/carpentries_environment.yml
Close the terminal window.

Open https://conda-forge.org/download/ with your web browser.
Download the appropriate Miniforge installer for Linux
The following steps require using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.
Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where the executable is downloaded (e.g., cd ~/Downloads).
Type
```
bash Miniforge3-
```
and then press Tab to autocomplete the full file name. The name of file you just downloaded should appear. Press Enter (or Return depending on your keyboard).
Follow the text-only prompts in the terminal. To move through the text, press Spacebar.
- Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to approve the license.
- Press Enter (or Return) to approve the default location for the files.
- Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to prepend Miniforge to your PATH (this makes the Miniforge distribution the default Python).
Then:
- EITHER:
  - Right click the following link and click "Save link as...": Carpentries environment file
  - Save the file to your Downloads folder.
  - Make sure that the filename is carpentries_environment.yml and the "Save as type" is set to YML file (*.yml)
- OR :
  - Open your terminal
  - cd ~/Downloads
  - curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carpentries/workshop-template/refs/heads/gh-pages/data/carpentries_environment.yml
In the terminal, run: conda env create -f ~/Downloads/carpentries_environment.yml
Close the terminal window.