Feedback from GAP in Algebraic Research school (Aachen, 2018)

Morning session

This session ended up with saving code into files.

Green notes

• Nice step-by-step introduction
• Good organisation of materials and presentation
• Good presentation of materials
• The content are quite well organised
• Idea with stickers is cool. This really makes asking questions easier
• I really like the use of stickers as tools for asking for help and give feedback
• Good idea the tickets!
• I really liked the tutorial, well explained, and differences between listing on a group elements or a group G!!!
• Appropriate speed
• Started from the beginning, easy to follow
• The session was understandable
• Slow and good tempo, I could follow
• The tempo was perfect. It was not to fast s.t. I could follow
• I learned a lot of interesting 'short' commands
• Lots of shortcuts - I am very lazy
• Very useful tips on optimising the working process (autocompletion etc)
• Many nice details
• Average order is a nice example
• "Real-life" example of application (average order of group elements) that demonstrate necessary syntax =)
• Good to solve a simple problem, not only technical details

Pink notes

• Could move faster (but I understand why it is not)
• Boring if you already know GAP (as expected, so that is fine)
• Could be a bit too slow even for an introduction
• Want to learn even more!
• Would be nice if we have more example
• Please, do not assume familiarity with command-like stuff or text editors like nano
• Lack of jokes maybe? It is not really a complain, more like a suggestion to include jokes in the tutorial
• Also, you could have opened Windows terminal on the other window to help Windows users during the read/load tutorial
• More specific advices depending on the OS (e.g. Windows)
• Reading files at the beginning would have been more convenient
• The last 30' went a bit too fast for me as I'm not used to work in this way (=command line) in a terminal
• A bit unclear at the end for saving functions
• Maybe better to resolve technical problems in the beginning?
• Need more electric sockets

Afternoon session

This seesion started with revising how to work with files, and then continued to test files and the rest of the lesson, and also included Jupyter demonstration using Binder.

Green notes

• Programming with a goal in mind
• Interesting lecture
• Examples were interesting
• Very informative and useful
• Interesting facts and commands; nice examples
• Like presentation of different packages -> also interesting for people knowing GAP
• Excellent the Jupyter notebook!! Incredible! I would like to see more about this application.
• References to "modern" interfaces like Jupyter instead of command line
• Some interesting tricks for people who already know GAP
• The graphical applications were awesome!
• The pacing was perfect

Pink notes

• Would like more small programming exercises to figure out yourself
• More on Jupyter visualisations - could be used more
• I would like to see more about the Jupyter notebook!
• Quite technical details for a first introduction ;)
• Make checkpoints of the file so that people can catch up in etherpad
• Tempo was a lot higher than this morning (but still OK)
• A little bit too long (and in some moments a bit too fast)
• A bit too long