Code Clinic

Stop wasting valuable time trying to fix issues on your own.

Code Clinics are fortnightly support sessions run by the RSE team (which is supported by the School of Computer Science, IT Services and the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences), IT Services’ Research IT and support team and Sheffield Bioinformatics Core team. They are open to anyone at TUOS writing code for research to get help with programming problems and general advice on best practice.

At each session, members of the RSE, Bioinformatics Core and/or Research IT and support teams will be available to review code, advise, troubleshoot and suggest ways to improve your computational workflows.

Who: Are you…

Thinking of ways to improve your code?
Want to automate a task (e.g: series of scripts)?
Unsure of which software tools to use for your project?
You have a lot of data and need help organising, storing, accessing or visualising it?
Need some advice on optimising your code?
Want to know whether your code could run faster on multiple cores or GPUs?
Want to re-write your code written in one language (e.g: Excel) in another language such as Python?
Need help with version control?
Want to know more about making your code open and/or citable?
Struggling with Bioinformatics analysis?

We can help!

Where?

The clinic will be held on Google Meet by default. A link will be provided in the Google Calendar invite issued when you book a clinic. If you would rather have an in person meeting, please contact us at code-clinic-helpers-group@sheffield.ac.uk

When

Every second Wednesday (13:30 - 15:30).

Book a slot

Clinic sessions are split into 3 half-hourly slots, bookable for consultation.

Book a code clinic session now

Note that slots can only be booked 48 hours or more before the scheduled time.

Preparing for your session

When you book a code clinic you will receive a link to a Google Doc where you can provide more information about your issue.
Please provide examples of the code you are working on, if possible. Often the best way to do this is via a “Minimal, Reproducible Example” (https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example) but sometimes this isn’t possible. It is good software engineering practice to share code using collaborative version control (e.g. GitHub) and it is good open research practice to do this publicly, although these practices are not always possible.
Please provide any information you can on the hardware, operating system, packages you are using.
Sometimes helping with the problem requires us to understand your data. Sharing data is not always possible. A readme or data dictionary is particularly useful in these situations.

On the day

If wanting to share your screen, try and have your workflow set up, ready to demonstrate your issue.

We will always try and help as best as possible. The overarching aim of the sessions is to better equip you to solve your own computational problems. This may include directing you to relevant documentation, appropriate online forums and resources, relevant upcoming training sessions, etc.

Cancelling your session

If you cannot attend the session, please give a No response on the calendar invite and email the code clinic helpers at code-clinic-helpers-group@sheffield.ac.uk so we can proceed to remove your booking from the system to cancel your session and free it up for someone else.

Any questions before your session?

In the first instance please contact the helper assigned to your request (see your Google Calendar appointment event for details) or if a helper hasn’t been assigned yet please contact code-clinic-helpers-group@sheffield.ac.uk.

Please do not reply directly to auto-generated emails received after booking a Code Clinic session - the associated mailbox is not monitored.

Interested in getting involved?

If you would like to get involved as a helper, please contact code-clinic-helpers-group@sheffield.ac.uk.