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Software development tools

Git/GitHub

Version control systems promote good software engineering practices
In the last few years, Git has emerged as one the best in class
GitHub has completely transformed collaborative software development
- Contributions to open source projects have exploded as a result
- Makes software development deeply social: "Facebook for coders"
Public repositories are free
- Encourages open collaboration
- All code, history, discussions are public
- Some scientists are uncomfortable with this
- The benefits outweight any downsides
- Most contributions are peer reviewed!
You can have private repositories, but they cost $
Let's have a look at IPython's GitHub repo

Version control systems are not the final answer to reproducibility, but they are a necessary beginning
Developer behavior changes when they know that everything they do is public
- Their reputation is on the line - employers routinely consult GitHub profiles
- Documentation and tests magically appear ;-)
A case study with an undergraduate physics major
- Zach Sailer graduated from Cal Poly in 2013 with a physics B.S.
- He did his senior project on "Dielectric Behavior of de Vries Liquid Crystals"
- "Hey you should post your senior project on GitHub"
- Reproducibility magically follows...
- Here is his GitHub repo