Software

Software tools

Students in DATA 23700 are expected to take responsibility for filling in gaps in their understanding of any software they use to complete their coursework. This goes especially for students who are new to a given programming language or software tool.

Most work in this class will be conducted using computational notebooks, other text files, and graphics editing tools. We will demonstrate how to work with computational notebooks in VS Code and RStudio, but students may choose to use a different programming environment or text editor if they want (e.g., Google Colab). Similarly, we will cover a handful of APIs in Python, R, and potentially JavaScript, but students may choose which of these to use for their coursework (unless instructed to use a specific tool). We may also briefly introduce graphics editing software such as Figma or Adobe Illustrator. Students are responsible for learning to use and troubleshoot whatever software tools they adopt to complete their coursework.

In particular, course staff will not help you install software or troubleshoot environment setup issues since these problems are tangential to our learning objectives, and students who are adequately prepared for the course should be able to navigate these kinds of problems independently.