DM Boot Camp 2 (or alternatives)

Data Management
#1

We are continuing to bring on board developers who need to be trained in the ways of LSST Data Management. While our developer documents are improving substantially, hands-on education with experienced teachers at the Boot Camp we had last year proved to be very popular and useful.

Some possibilities (this post is a wiki, so anyone can add more if desired):

  • No need for a new Boot Camp; videos from the last time (possibly with the addition of topic-level indexing) in combination with the improved documents should be sufficient.
  • No need for a new Boot Camp; now we need an Advanced Beginner Camp with different topics.
  • We need a new Boot Camp with updates based on the development that has occurred.
  • Instead of a Boot Camp, have a “DM University” track at the August All Hands with both beginner and more advanced courses.
  • Have a “DM University” series of weekly/fortnightly/monthly courses. Could be combined with a successor to the Python book club.
  • Some combination of the above.

Possible topics for such training include the original Boot Camp list and the following:

  • “Performance thinking”: design patterns and development practices that produce efficient yet clear code; pitfalls to avoid; tools to help analyze and monitor performance.
#2

How about a training session on how to use the capabilities that came over from the HSC side?

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#3

I just heard a plea for a training program for non-DM early adopters who want to work on algorithm development, mostly within DESC - there is apparently some frustration about DM consistently not having time to help science collaboration members who want to use our codebase. I suspect this is actually a very similar audience to new DM developers, aside from geography.

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#4

In addition to videos, examples on how doing things are really useful. Videos are ok for general information, but the most effective experience were the hands on sessions with @yusra when she visited Tucson and later with @rowen during the Boot Camp. I liked the idea of DM University with beginner and advanced courses, examples/tutorials could be derived from them.