HPC Carpentry wants YOU

If you haven’t heard, there have been massive improvements to the high performance computing (HPC) Carpentry lessons and now is a great time to join the community! 

What is HPC Carpentry?

HPC Carpentry is a hands-on, Carpentries-style introduction to High Performance Computing (HPC) that is for people who are new to the concept of advanced computing and want to use it effectively for research.  The neat thing about Carpentries-style workshops is that they are interactive, with learners following along on their own machine as an instructor teaches via live coding. Carpentries workshops are meant to require minimal prerequisite knowledge from learners and are renowned for their inclusivity. Those involved in developing HPC Carpentry hope it will one day become an official Carpentries lesson program alongside Data Carpentry, Software Carpenty, and Library Carpentry.

For a brief overview of HPC Carpentry - check out this 5min video update

HPC Carpentry community call summary

Since there have been lots of changes to the HPC Carpentry curriculum in the past year, a community discussion was held on 21 April 2021 for those wanting to learn where things stand.  Here are a few highlights from the discussion:

  • Those in the HPC Carpentry community are working to make it an official Carpentries lesson plan.  What this entails is outlined fully here - but one requirement is that an HPC Carpentry steering committee exists for liaising with the Carpentries.
  • If you didn’t know, the HPC Carpentry material has customisable lessons now! One of the major critiques for early HPC Carpentry lessons was that they tended to favor one specific platform.  The result was lots of versions of HPC Carpentry and lots of confusion for those wanting to get involved but not knowing what was the source of truth. To remedy this the HPC Carpentry community have incorporated a snippets library into the curriculum - which allows the workshop host to insert the relevant institute, scheduler, and cluster into the workshop material. 
  • The top priority for those who have been working on the HPC Carpentry lessons is to get feedback from YOU.  What do you like about the lessons? What is missing? What is covered in too much detail?  All thoughts and opinions will be taken into account - especially if you are a non-expert HPC user. Take a peek at the lessons today and give us your feedback by submitting an issue in github or emailing maintainers-hpc@lists.carpentries.org

You can check out the full notes from the call here: https://pad.carpentries.org/HPC_Carpentry_chat__April2021.

Stay in touch 

Excited about HPC Carpentry? Here are some ways you can help out and/ or stay updated on progress:

Want to run an HPC Carpentry workshop?

All HPC Carpentry lessons currently sit within the Carpentries incubator - a place for sharing Carpentries-style teaching materials at all stages of development. You are more than welcome to teach any Carpentries Incubator lessons in meetups, in classes, or as complements to a “standard” 2-day Carpentries workshop. These lessons can also be used by independent learners, outside of workshops. Click here to see the latest list of HPC Carpentry lessons under development and please let the HPC Carpentry task force know if you do plan on using the material or running a workshop - your feedback is invaluable for creating a quality community-developed lesson. You can reach the task force by emailing maintainers-hpc@lists.carpentries.org

Want to stay up to date with lesson improvements?

Want to join the steering committee?

Voting and steering committee nominations are happening here.  Nominations and voting will be open until the end of May

This project is dependent on the energy and enthusiasm of the community, so any contributions, big or small, are very appreciated.

 

Topic: 
Community