The following package was mentioned (on the whiteboard): ggplot2 (by Hadley Wickham)
George Boole, an English man, a well-known mathematician at Queen’s College in Cork, and inventor of the Boolean logic was mentioned when Kevin was explaining about true and false.
Some set theory was covered but probability was the theme of the day.
Examining data sets - class to try the commands for
mtcarsdescribe(mtcars)
Get an error, so use command install.packages(“psych”)
A CRAN mirror dialog appears, select Ireland (HEANet), Internet connection required.
After it successfully installed but if there is a problem, it could be because it assumes that you are downloading the latest pkg for that latest version of R. Just remember to keep R up-to-date.
Run describe and still doesn’t run, you need to specify where the command is coming from (like import), need to run library(psych) Running describe again it should work.
Check out SocialSciences on CRAN-r; find psych to see its own reference manual and vignette.
Use sample() to get random data from a data set, it’s just resample again.
Another mention of Risk Lab which refers to the game show door problem where 3 doors are presented to a contestant, they pick one door, the show host opens a door to a goat. There’s one door left, do they want to switch door to win the big prize or stick with the door they picked. Marilyn vos Savant presented an argument to stick which caused furore when it was published in Parade Magazine, almost 10,000 letters were written in saying she was wrong and 1,000 of those letters were signed off by PhD signatures.
And finally a video of Grace Hopper’s explanation of nanoseconds, which I found is a favourite to many I’ve shown it to so far. :-)
The workshop ended on time, and everyone seemed to be positive and I’m sure we have some R converts.
An introduction to the statistical programming language R, aimed at beginners. The workshop will look mainly at working with the R programming environment, using Packages, basic programming, working with data objects and some programming statements such as For While and If. The workshop is intended for beginners. Statistical programming will be mentioned, but will be tangential to the overall lesson outcome.
PhD Candidate in Statistics, who has been teaching R in the university of Limerick for 4 years. Also an organizer of the Dublin R user group ,with specific responsibility for workshops.
More details will follow about ticket registration. In the mean time, you can either ask me anything or email codinggrace@gmail.com if you have any questions regarding this workshop.
It was a mixed bag outside where it’s sunny one minute and hailing the next, but one thing is for sure, we had a class full of enthusiastic workshoppers who can’t wait to learn about Python.
After handing out stickers and announcement of 5 private repositories for participants for 1 year (thanks github), we got straight into making sure everyone is settled in and that they are set up for the upcoming lectures.
After the lightning talks, I finished the rest of the Python lecture and wrapped up by going through one of the examples from ColorWall. We didn’t have enough time to go through Wordplay or Twitter.
The long day was coming to a close, I’m sure there was information overload for those taking part in the workshop, I was really tired by this stage (as was everyone including the volunteers) and with help of Rigel and Mick’s prompting I was able to continue on after my little hamster in my brain refused to work when I started the lecture; tiredness or stage fright (or both). It was my first time and I actually enjoyed it given the circumstances. And Mick did make a nice assistant pointing at the whiteboard for me during Colorwall. :-)
This evening flew even though we wrapped up just before 21:00. The atmostphere was quite relaxed, we have an informal introduction of everyone (which I’m sure most people remembered each other names, right?!), I gave a quick introduction about Coding Grace and how it came to be. A few comments on why people came along which ranged from curiosity to bringing back knowledge to their own classes that they mentor (no pressure, heehee).
A few things that I found on my browser tabs after I got home:-
Oh wow, thank you to those who have registered. Our first workshop is fully booked up, but the waiting is list open now. You never know, a free slot might open up.
Be sure to follow the news posts here or on @codinggrace for updates on future workshops.
Please drop a comment here, via a tweet or in our Google group on what workshops you would like us to do in the near future.
Coding Grace will be having our first full day workshop, and to get things going, it will be Python for beginners.
Friday evening, 10th May: Set up machines
Saturday, 11th May: Full day
If you don’t know what we are about, here’s a quick blurb from our About page.
Coding Grace are a group of developers based in Ireland who love to code and do other geeky and not necessarily crafty activities. Some of us code full-time, or just for fun (or both). We have people who are part of other technical user groups such as Dublin ALT.NET, GameCraft, Python Ireland, Ruby Ireland and more…
We provide female-friendly workshops and events in an environment for developers and aspiring developers mentored by majority female instructors. We aim to provide a support network for people from all backgrounds and hope our outreach will help bring those who are interested in code development together and learn from one another.
We will post more information regarding the running order of the day and registration details.
