What is a sprint?

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In October we're hosting our first 'code sprint'! What is that?

A code sprint is a type of hackathon, in which efforts are focused around a small number of open source projects. They are related to, but not really the same as, sprints in the Scrum software development framework. They are non-competitive — the only goal is to improve the software in question, whether it's adding functionality, fixing bugs, writing tests, improving documentation, or doing any of the other countless things that good software needs. 

On 13 and 14 October, we'll be hacking on 3 projects:

  • Devito: a high-level finite difference library for Python. Devito featured in three Geophysical Tutorials at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 (see Witte et al. for Part 3). The project needs help with code, tests, model examples, and documentation. There will be core devs from the project at the sprint. GitHub repo is here.
  • Bruges: a simple collection of Python functions representing basic geophysical equations. We built this library back in 2015, and have been chipping away ever since. It needs more equations, better docs, and better tests — and the project is basic enough for anyone to contribute to it, even a total Python newbie. GitHub repo is here.
  • G3.js: a JavaScript wrapper for D3.js, a popular plotting toolkit for web developers. When we tried to adapt D3.js to geoscience data, we found we wanted to simplify basic tasks like making vertical plots, and plotting raster-like data (e.g. seismic) with line plots on top (e.g. horizons). Experience with JavaScript is a must. GitHub repo is here.

The sprint will be at a small joint called MAZ Café Con Leche, located in Santa Ana about 10 km or 15 minutes from the Anaheim Convention Center where the SEG Annual Meeting is happening the following week.

Thank you, as ever, to our fantastic sponsors: Dell EMC and Enthought. These two companies are powered by amazing people doing amazing things. I'm very grateful to them both for being such enthusiastic champions of the change we're working for in our science and our industry. 

If you like the sound of spending the weekend coding, talking geophysics, and enjoying the best coffee in southern California, please join us at the Geophysics Sprint! Register on Eventbrite and we'll see you there.