Mozilla on The Carpentries

A Double Handful of Bootcamps

Sun, 15 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The next couple of days are going to be busy, with bootcamps in Amman and Toronto, and at Duke, UC Davis, and Claremont Colleges. The week after will be just a crowded: we'll be at the universities of Reading and Notre Dame, the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society, Rockefeller University in New York, and an event for women in science and engineering in Philadelphia. As always, we're grateful to our hosts and instructors for making all of this possible.

From Training to Engagement

Fri, 21 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I was interviewed about Software Carpentry earlier this week, and the interviewer's second question was, "Don't scientists all learn how to program these days as part of their education?" The answer, even today, is "no": the average scientist might know more about calculus and statistics than someone who did a degree in marketing or graphic design, but she probably doesn't know any more about how to build software and share data on the web.

Brent Gorda and I started Software Carpentry in 1998 to fix that. Our goal was to teach our colleagues the equivalent of basic lab skills for scientific computing so that they could get more done in less time and with less pain. As the project grew, I realized that this problem wasn't specific to scientists: almost everyone who uses the web spends hours or days doing things that a few simple programs could do for them faster and more reliably.

Our Plan for the Science Lab

Mon, 02 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Kaitlin Thaney, the recently-appointed Director of the Mozilla Science Lab, recently posted some thoughts about the lab's mission and plans. Long story short, its focus is to improve communication and interoperability in open science—paraphrasing William Gibson, the future is already here, but the pieces don't play nicely with each other yet, so the lab is going to help make and strengthen social and technical connections. If you have thoughts on how to accelerate this, we'd like to hear from you.

Announcing the Mozilla Science Lab

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

We're very excited to announce the launch of the Mozilla Science Lab, a new initiative that will help researchers around the world use the open web to shape science's future. The Science Lab will foster dialog between the open web community and scientific researchers. Together they'll share ideas, tools, and best practices for using next-generation web solutions to solve real problems in science, and explore ways to make research more agile and collaborative.

Good News About Software Carpentry (and More)

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

We're pleased to announce that Mozilla and Software Carpentry will be continuing and expanding our work to empower scientists with computer science and webmaking skills. We have been working with the Sloan Foundation to teach scientists the concepts, tools and techniques they need to use computers and the web to accelerate their research. In 2013-14, the program will offer an expanded set of workshops, online tutorials, and a new peer-to-peer mentoring program.