Feedback from Johns Hopkins

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Today we wrapped up our 2-day bootcamp at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. We had a pretty small group of about 12 each day (out of 20 signed up). In a really pleasant surprise we had students come from Brooklyn, NY and Virginia, plus two students who commuted up from Sigma Space in Lanham, MD. Overall feedback seemed quite positive:

Good

Bad

advanced bash (find, pipes)
git and GitHub are cool
all the bootcamp material is online (at GitHub)
intro to Python
free
intro to shell
saw some advanced Python
testing/debugging
branching in git
bootcamp was local
examples relevant to scientists
watching how someone else works
we covered everything we planned (from Matt)

show/use more IPython features (from someone who already uses it)
shell went too slow, Python went too fast
projector small/dim (+fonts small)
had to take time off work (about half said they would have come on the weekend.)
would like domain specific Python examples
would like a third day (majority would have come for another day)
hard if you miss the first day
want more NumPy, SciPy, etc.
get left behind if you make a mistake
don't see complexity when writing examples from scratch, could provide some pre-written code
more step-by-step instructions online
wanted to see professional workflow with IPython notebook (from Josh)
could use pre-class surveys to tailor lessons

Big thanks to the other instructors Joshua, Sasha, and Mike!