ECBS 5241: Coding for Economists

Central European University

Online

November 10-26, 2020

various times

Instructors: Miklós Koren, Márton Fleck

Helpers:

Please be informed that the classes are recorded by the Departments of Economics and Business and shared via Moodle where you and all other participants of the course can watch it until the end of this semester. During the recording your image or voice might be recorded. We publish the recording of the lecture with no modifications. After that date, we only retain an edited version of the recording in which no personally identifiable information about you is visible or audible. The original, unedited recordings will be deleted.

General Information

Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Best Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.

When: November 10-26, 2020. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.

Contact: Please email korenm@ceu.edu for more information.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.

Who can attend?: This workshop is open to students of CEU or partner universities in Civica and OSUN.


Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.


Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey


Schedule


Setup

To participate in a Software Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Install the videoconferencing client

If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.

Set up your workspace

Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:

This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.

The Bash Shell

Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do tasks more quickly.

  1. Download the Git for Windows installer.
  2. Run the installer and follow the steps below:
    1. Click on "Next" four times (two times if you've previously installed Git). You don't need to change anything in the Information, location, components, and start menu screens.
    2. From the dropdown menu select "Use the nano editor by default" (NOTE: you may need to scroll up to find it) and click on "Next".
    3. Ensure that "Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software" is selected and click on "Next". (If you don't do this Git Bash will not work properly, requiring you to remove the Git Bash installation, re-run the installer and to select the "Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software" option.)
    4. Ensure that "Use the native Windows Secure Channel library" is selected and click on "Next".
    5. Ensure that "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings" is selected and click on "Next".
    6. Ensure that "Use Windows' default console window" is selected and click on "Next".
    7. Ensure that "Default (fast-forward or merge) is selected and click "Next"
    8. Ensure that "Enable Git Credential Manager" is selected and click on "Next".
    9. Ensure that "Enable file system caching" is selected and click on "Next".
    10. Click on "Install".
    11. Click on "Finish" or "Next".
  3. If your "HOME" environment variable is not set (or you don't know what this is):
    1. Open command prompt (Open Start Menu then type cmd and press Enter)
    2. Type the following line into the command prompt window exactly as shown:

      setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"

    3. Press Enter, you should see SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.
    4. Quit command prompt by typing exit then pressing Enter

This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.

Video Tutorial

The default shell in some versions of macOS is Bash, and Bash is available in all versions, so no need to install anything. You access Bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities). See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open the Terminal. You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.

To see if your default shell is Bash type echo $SHELL in Terminal and press the Return key. If the message printed does not end with '/bash' then your default is something else and you can run Bash by typing bash

If you want to change your default shell, see this Apple Support article and follow the instructions on "How to change your default shell".

Video Tutorial

The default shell is usually Bash and there is usually no need to install anything.

To see if your default shell is Bash type echo $SHELL in a terminal and press the Enter key. If the message printed does not end with '/bash' then your default is something else and you can run Bash by typing bash.

Git

Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com. You will need a supported web browser.

You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.

For macOS, install Git for Mac by downloading and running the most recent "mavericks" installer from this list. Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click Open on the pop up window. After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications folder, as Git is a command line program. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard" available here.

Video Tutorial

If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run sudo dnf install git.

Text Editor

When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is optimized for writing code, with features like automatic color-coding of key words. The default text editor on macOS and Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being intuitive. If you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, hit the Esc key, followed by :+Q+! (colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to return to the shell.

nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It is installed along with Git.

Others editors that you can use are Notepad++ or Sublime Text. Be aware that you must add its installation directory to your system path. Please ask your instructor to help you do this.

nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open nano. It should be pre-installed.

Video Tutorial

Others editors that you can use are BBEdit or Sublime Text.

nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It should be pre-installed.

Others editors that you can use are Gedit, Kate or Sublime Text.

Stata

This lesson uses the statistical package Stata. It has been tested on Stata 16.1 MultiProcessor, but it should work on most recent versions.

If you do not have a Stata license, please let your instructor know so that they can request a short-term training license for free.

If you are newly installing Stata on your computer, follow these instructions.

  1. Go to the link given by your instructor
  2. Download and launch the installer: SetupStata16.exe
  3. Once the installation is done, start Stata from the Start Menu. The first time you do this, you will have to activate your licence.
  4. Enter the serial number provided and press enter
  5. Enter the code and press enter
  6. Enter the authorization and press enter
  7. It should return “Good. The serial number, code, and authorization make sense. Shall we continue?” Type Y and press enter.
  8. When it asks for the first line, it should say “CEU”
  9. When it asks for the second line, it should say “ECBS 5241”
  10. It will ask for confirmation. Type “Y” and press enter.
  1. Go to the link given by your instructor
  2. Download and launch the installer: Stata16.dmg
  3. Once the installation is done, start Stata from the Start Menu. The first time you do this, you will have to activate your licence.
  4. Enter the serial number provided and press enter
  5. Enter the code and press enter
  6. Enter the authorization and press enter
  7. It should return “Good. The serial number, code, and authorization make sense. Shall we continue?” Type Y and press enter.
  8. When it asks for the first line, it should say “CEU”
  9. When it asks for the second line, it should say “ECBS 5241”
  10. It will ask for confirmation. Type “Y” and press enter.
  1. Go to the link given by your instructor
  2. Download Stata16Linux64.tar.gz.
  3. Open a terminal and navigate to the directory where your downloaded file is located (e.g. cd ~/Downloads/)
  4. Get superuser rights (sudo su)
  5. Create a new directory (e.g. mkdir stata_install)
  6. Move the downloaded file to this new directory (mv Stata16Linux64.tar.gz. stata_install/)
  7. Enter the directory (cd stata_install)
  8. Extract the installation files using tar xzf Stata16Linux64.tar.gz
  9. Create a directory for your stata installation (mkdir /usr/local/stata16)
  10. Navigate to the stata directory (cd /usr/local/stata16)
  11. Start the installation by executing the extracted install file (e.g. /home/username/Downloads/stata_install/install)
  12. Whenever the installer asks if you want to proceed type “y” and press enter
  13. Once the installation is done, type ./stinit to activate your licence
  14. Whenever it asks you if you want to continue, type “Y” and press enter
  15. Enter the serial number provided and press enter
  16. Enter the code and press enter
  17. Enter the authorization and press enter
  18. It should return “Good. The serial number, code, and authorization make sense. Shall we continue?” Type Y and press enter.
  19. When it asks for the first line, it should say “CEU”
  20. When it asks for the second line, it should say “ECBS 5241”
  21. It will ask for confirmation. Type “Y” and press enter.
  22. Try to start stata by ./xstata. If it gives you the following error message (./stata: error while loading shared libraries: libpng12.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory), continue with the steps below:

  23. Issue the following commands one by one in your terminal window:
    apt-get install zlib1g-dev
          wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/libp/libpng/libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
          dpkg -i libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
          

Python

Python is a popular language for research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend Anaconda, an all-in-one installer.

Regardless of how you choose to install it, please make sure you install Python version 3.x (e.g., 3.6 is fine).

We will teach Python using the Jupyter Notebook, a programming environment that runs in a web browser (Jupyter Notebook will be installed by Anaconda). For this to work you will need a reasonably up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers are all supported (some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9 and below, are not).

  1. Open https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual#download-section with your web browser.
  2. Download the Anaconda for Windows installer with Python 3. (If you are not sure which version to choose, you probably want the 64-bit Graphical Installer Anaconda3-...-Windows-x86_64.exe)
  3. Install Python 3 by running the Anaconda Installer, using all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Add Anaconda to my PATH environment variable.

Video Tutorial

  1. Open https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual#download-section with your web browser.
  2. Download the Anaconda Installer with Python 3 for macOS (you can either use the Graphical or the Command Line Installer).
  3. Install Python 3 by running the Anaconda Installer using all of the defaults for installation.

Video Tutorial

  1. Open https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual#download-section with your web browser.
  2. Download the Anaconda Installer with Python 3 for Linux.
    (The installation requires using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.)
  3. Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where the executable is downloaded (e.g., `cd ~/Downloads`).
  4. Type
    bash Anaconda3-
    and then press Tab to autocomplete the full file name. The name of file you just downloaded should appear.
  5. Press Enter (or Return depending on your keyboard). You will follow the text-only prompts. To move through the text, press Spacebar. Type yes and press enter to approve the license. Press Enter (or Return) to approve the default location for the files. Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to prepend Anaconda to your PATH (this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).
  6. Close the terminal window.