Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Scientific Computing

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

When I set out on my path into neuroscience, the idea of scientific computing was not even something that came up in passing. However, with little warning, I started spending my days at the computer writing code to analyse brain data.

Cleaning neuroimaging data is a multi-step process and I wanted to bring out the most from the data. To do that, I thought, would require using the best bits from a slew of neuroimaging preprocessing tools. Some were better at removing extraneous noise, while others were better at image morphing. But entering the commands one by one was tedious and error-prone and the formats for the different functions were not always compatible. There had to be a better way. So, writing some kind of code became my only option.

Lynne Williams on The Carpentries

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Scientific Computing