Communications of the ACM
For Modern Astronomers, It's Learn to Code or Get Left Behind
Credit: iStockPhoto.com
Astronomer Meredith Rawls was in an astronomy master's program at San Diego State University in 2008 when her professor threw a curveball. "We're going to need to do some coding," he said to her class. "Do you know how to do that?"
Not really, the students said.
So she started teaching herself. "I basically lost the better part of a year of standard research productivity time largely due to that choice, to switch my tools," she says, "but I don't think I could have succeeded without that."
Today's astronomers don't just need to know how stars form and black holes burst. They also need knowledge of how to pry that information from the many terabytes of data that will stream from next-generation telescopes. So they're largely teaching themselves — using a suite of open-source training tools, focused workshops, and fellowship programs aims to help and actually prepare astronomers for the universe they're entering.
From Wired
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