Bootcamp

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the University of Wisconsin — Madison to speak at a three-day software skills bootcamp run by The Hacker Within, a grassroots student group that's taking the same "teach what you know, learn what you don't" approach as the Peer-to-Peer University and other efforts. I was very impressed then, and am even more so now that I've had time to reflect on what I saw (and recover from my close encounter with Delta Airlines, whose motto appears to be, "We don't care because we don't have to").

And then, a couple of days ago, I got mail from a graduate student in Mississippi who'd like to organize an online run of Software Carpentry through P2PU. We'll post details soon, but it's got me thinking more about how we could experiment with different delivery models to get this stuff into as many hands as possible, as quickly as possible. I would therefore like to ask if you (yes, you) would like to organize a bootcamp on site wherever you are. We can provide content, share our experiences, and (perhaps most importantly) send someone who has done one of these before to wherever you are to help out. If you think you can get a couple of dozen grad students, faculty, lab mates, or fellow fans together for three days to learn and share, please add a comment to this post to let us know.

Work as though you lived in the early days of a better nation.
— Alasdair Gray