Advanced Scientific Programming in Python
a Winter School by the G-Node and University of Warsaw
Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have evolved, only few scientists actually 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 with 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'll 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. Clean language design and easy extensibility are driving Python to become a standard tool for scientific computing. Some of the most useful open source libraries for scientific computing and visualization will be presented.
This winter school is targeted at Post-docs and PhD students from all areas. Substantial proficiency in Python or in another language (e.g. Java, C/C++, MATLAB, Mathematica) is absolutely required. An optional, one-day introduction to Python is offered to participants without prior experience with the language.
Download the original announcement: pdf (441 kB)
Date & Location
February 8th — 12th, 2010. Warsaw, Poland.
Program
Applications, statistics, participants, photos and videos
Location and communication within the city
The event will take place in rooms SST and SDT, ul. Hoża 69, Faculty of Physics, Warsaw, Poland. Location on google maps.
It is very near to the central railway station (7 minutes by foot). google walking directions :)
From the airport, please take bus 175. Route on google map.
If you are going to use public communication, we recommend buying a weekly ticket. It costs 32PLN = 7.75€ and allows for unlimited use of buses, trams and the subway for seven days (from first use until the midnight on the last day, within city limits).
Accomodation
We would like to recommend some places to stay. Please see accomodation for more information.
Faculty
- Francesc Alted, author of PyTables, Castelló de la Plana,
Spain [Day 3] - Valentin Haenel, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin,
Germany [Day 1] - Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw,
Poland [Day 0] - Eilif Muller, The Blue Brain Project, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,
Switzerland [Day 3] - Rike-Benjamin Schuppner, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience,Berlin, Germany [Day 1]
- Bartosz Teleńczuk, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,Germany [Day 2]
- Niko Wilbert, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,Germany [Day 1]
- Tiziano Zito, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin,Germany [Day 4]
Organized by Tiziano Zito (German Neuroinformatics Node of the INCF) and Piotr Durka, Joanna and Zbigniew Jędrzejewscy-Szmek (Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw).
Students
A list of the participants. All students have been subscribed to the mailing list python-winterschool-std@g-node.org. If you are a student you can post there for general questions.
All students can edit the wiki after logging in. The account name and password are the same as in SVN.
You are invited to join our Facebook group: Kung-fu Python
Winter School Evaluation
The evaluation survey has been completed by 31 out of 34 students.
We are really happy that you enjoyed the school so much, and hope to give you an even better experience next time .
Have a look at the results.
