lab_03.md

Lab 3

Objectives

Students:

• Get the repository that they'll be building their Projects in set up
• Practice working collaboratively in a repository

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Preliminaries: Terminal in VSCode

• Open the integrated terminal
  • Select the shell (Git Bash or other)
• Python interpreter selection
  • Use the Python: Select Interpreter from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)

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Project team repository setup

• Create a public repository in the advanced-computing organization.
  • Make the name something distinctive, such as:
    • What your project is focused on
    • Your celebrity couple name
    • A combination of your favorite snacks
    • The name your automation will assume once it becomes sentient
• On your computer choose a directory to locate your local repository
  • Choose a path that will be easy to access:
    • ✓ C:/repos/
    • ✗ C:/Users/rbzun/OneDrive/Documents/classes/advanced computing/
• Using the terminal
  • cd to this directory
  • Clone your project repository
    1. Copy the repository URL
    2. In the terminal run git clone <URL>
• Open your local repository folder in VSCode

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Adding a .gitignore

• In general, we don't want Git to commit every single file in our local repository
  • Examples: .DS_Store files in macOS; Thumbs.db files in Windows; python environment files .env and .venv (more on this below)
• We can tell Git which files and folders to ignore using a .gitignore file
• Set one up for Python and Mac or Windows
• Save a .gitignore file in your repository's root directory

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Setting up a Virtual Environment

• In the repository folder, create a virtual environment running the command python -m venv .venv

• Add a requirements.txt listing the packages that you expect to use in your project. Write each package on its own line, for example:

  pandas
  jupyter==1.*
  plotly
  

• Activate the virtual environment

• Install the dependencies:

  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Select the Python interpreter under .venv/ as the kernel.

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Checking that .gitignore works

• Check the list of changes in the Source Control panel of VSCode
• Go to the .gitignore file, comment the .venv/ line and save
• Check the list of changes again. Can you see the problem?
• Uncomment the .venv/ line and save
• Create a new branch, commit and push
• By group, merge one of the pull requests

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Pull request practice

• Make sure your repository is up-to-date: checkout to the main branch and pull
• Each student will create a new branch to add a new feature:
  • Student A: add the notebook from Part 1
    • Ensure the notebook runs from VSCode.
    • The notebook may not (fully) render on GitHub, due to having interactivity. Try accessing the GitHub URL via nbviewer/Colab.
  • Student B: add a README.md
    • Add project title and a short description
    • Setup/usage instructions - these will change over time
  • Student A or B: add an Open in Colab button
• Review each other's pull requests

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Adding TODOs

Each group create issues for the things that came up in the brainstorming. Add objectives / acceptance criteria for each. (These can change later.)

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Examples

Get data

- [ ] The get data function should collect all data from source XX
- [ ] The data should be stored as a DataFrame with columns X, Y, Z,...
- [ ] The get data function should print the number of rows

Make Visualization X

- [ ] Add a visualize button
- [ ] Produce an interactive graph showing X vs Y
- [ ] Add a filter by YY option
- [ ] Add a group by ZZ option

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