the G-Node and the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have evolved, only few scientists have been trained to use them. As a result, instead of doing their research, they spend far too much time writing deficient code and reinventing the wheel. In this course we will present a selection of advanced programming techniques, incorporating theoretical lectures and practical exercises tailored to the needs of a programming scientist. New skills will be tested in a real programming project: we will team up to develop an entertaining scientific computer game.
We use the Python programming language for the entire course. Python works as a simple programming language for beginners, but more importantly, it also works great in scientific simulations and data analysis. We show how clean language design, ease of extensibility, and the great wealth of open source libraries for scientific computing and data visualization are driving Python to become a standard tool for the programming scientist.
This school is targeted at Master or PhD students and Post-docs from all areas of science. Competence in Python or in another language such as Java, C/C++, MATLAB, or Mathematica is absolutely required. Basic knowledge of Python is assumed. Participants without any prior experience with Python should work through the proposed introductory materials before the course.
Download the original announcement: pdf
Group photo
Date & Location
September 2–7, 2012. Kiel, Germany 
Address
Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Leibnizstr. 11, 24118 Kiel
Tel. +49 (0)431 880-2518, Fax. +49 (0)431 880-3968
python-info@g-node.org
Information about Kiel, travel, and accommodation.
Preliminary Program
Day0 (Sun Sep 2): Best Programming Practices
- Best Practices, Development Methodologies and the Zen of Python
- Version control with git
- Object-oriented programming & design patterns
Day1 (Mon Sep 3): Software Carpentry
- Test-driven development, unit testing & quality assurance
- Debugging, profiling and benchmarking techniques
- Best practices in data visualization
- Programming in teams
Day2 (Tue Sep 4): Scientific Tools for Python
- Advanced NumPy
- The Quest for Speed (intro): Interfacing to C with Cython
- Advanced Python I: idioms, useful built-in data structures, generators
Day3 (Wed Sep 5): The Quest for Speed
- Writing parallel applications in Python
- Programming project
Day4 (Thu Sep 6): Efficient Memory Management
- When parallelization does not help: the starving CPUs problem
- Advanced Python II: decorators and context managers
- Programming project
Day5 (Fri Sep 7): Practical Software Development
- Programming project
- The Pelita Tournament
Lectures start at 8:30 and finish around 18:30. During the day we will have short breaks (coffee & tea provided), and a long lunch break. The last half hour every evening is dedicated to tutors' consultation: Tutors will answer your questions and give suggestions for your own projects.
On Sunday, September 2 registration starts at 8:00: please try to be there as soon as possible, the lecture starts at 8:30 sharp.
On Friday, September 7, we are going to have a little farewell party that you should not miss: book your return travel not before Saturday, September 8 
Have a look at the planned social activities.
Schedule & Materials
Applications
You can apply on-line. Here is a preview of the application form.
Applications must be submitted before 23:59 UTC, May 1 2012. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by June 1, 2012. Participants have been selected.
No fee is charged but participants should take care of travel, living, and accommodation expenses.
Candidates will be selected on the basis of their profile. Places are limited: acceptance rate last time was around 20%.
Prerequisites
You are encouraged to go through the introductory material.
Students
Evaluation Survey
Faculty
- Francesc Alted, Continuum Analytics Inc.,
USA - Pietro Berkes, Enthought Inc.,
UK - Valentin Haenel, Blue Brain Project, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,
Switzerland - Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw,
Poland - Eilif Muller, Blue Brain Project, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,Switzerland
- Emanuele Olivetti, NeuroInformatics Laboratory, Fondazione Bruno Kessler and University of Trento,
Italy - Rike-Benjamin Schuppner, Technologit GbR,
Germany - Bartosz Teleńczuk, Unité de Neurosciences Information et Complexité, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Gif-sur-Yvette,
France - Stéfan van der Walt, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, USA
- Bastian Venthur, Berlin Institute of Technology and Bernstein Focus Neurotechnology, Germany
- Niko Wilbert, TNG Technology Consulting GmbH, Germany
- Tiziano Zito, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,Germany
Previous Schools
- St Andrews, UK, September 11—16, 2011.
- Trento, Italy, October 4—8, 2010.
- Warsaw, Poland, February 8—12, 2010.
- Berlin, Germany, August 31—September 4, 2009.
You may be interested in the results of our evaluation surveys: St Andrews, Trento, Warsaw, Berlin.
Contact
For any further questions please write to python-info@g-node.org.
Organizers
Organized by Christian T. Steigies and Christian Drews of the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel , and by Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek and Tiziano Zito for the German Neuroinformatics Node of the INCF .
Sponsors
Additional support is generously provided by:
