IDEs¶

RStudio running on Bianca

RStudio is one of the IDEs that can be used on Bianca.

Objectives

Find information in the UPPMAX documentation about IDEs on Bianca
Give a reasonable definition of what an IDE is
Remember that RStudio, Jupyter, VSCodium are IDEs that can be run on Bianca
Can run the voted-for IDE on Bianca
(optional) Can give a reason why to use an IDE
(optional) Can give a reason why not to use an IDE on Bianca
(optional) Can give a reason why not to run an IDE on a login node
(optional) Can give a reason when to use an interactive session
(optional) Can find out if an interactive session is active

Notes for teachers

Teaching goals:

The learners have explored the UPPMAX documentation
The learners have seen that there are different IDEs on Bianca
The learners have start at least one IDE on Bianca
The learners understand why to use an IDE
The learners understand why not to use an IDE on Bianca
The learners understand when to run an IDE on a login node
The learners understand when to use an interactive session
The learners understand how to find out an interactive session is active

Lesson plan:

gantt
  title IDEs
  dateFormat X
  axisFormat %s
  Introduction: intro, 0, 5s
  Vote on whcih IDE: vote, after intro, 5s
  Exercise with winning IDE: crit, exercise, after vote, 20s
  Feedback: feedback, after exercise, 10s
  Monologue other 2 IDEs: monologue, after feedback, 5s
  Break: milestone, after monologue

Why?¶

You want to develop/modify code on Bianca in a program ...

... that you already use on your regular computer
... that is not the terminal
... that helps you do so by providing code completion, code hints, run-time debugging, etc.

Hence, you want to use an IDE.

IDE (pronounce aj-dee-ee) is short for 'Integrated Development Environment', or 'a program in which you do programming'. The goal of an IDE is to help develop code, with features such as code completion, code hints and interactive debugging.

Using an IDE on Bianca is cumbersome and there are superior ways to develop code on Bianca, as -for example- taught in the UPPMAX 'Programming Formalisms' course.

There are three IDEs on Bianca we can show: Jupyter, RStudio or VSCodium. We will practice and discuss one, and briefly talk about the others.

Procedure¶

We pick the winning IDE democratically:

In the shared document, add a character before each IDE you'd be interested in, between the [ ] of each option. This will be messy. You can vote for 0, 1, 2 or 3 IDEs.

It may look like below, where there is a preference for Jupyter:

- [,a/b*efgh!] Jupyter
- [a/d,h] RStudio
- [cd!h]VSCodium

Exercises¶

Exercise 1: Start the favorite IDE¶

Learning objectives

Explore the UPPMAX documentation
Start the favorite IDE on Bianca

Go to the UPPMAX documentation of the IDEs on Bianca
Get the IDE that got the most votes to run on Bianca, by following its documentation. If you really want to run another IDE, you may do so! When done, do exercise 2.

If you chose Jupyter

You can skip the venv step!

If not done so earlier:

$ cd ~   # just 'cd' will work as well
$ ln -s /proj/sens2023598/ proj

Start jupyter from your $HOME folder
Try to run the script Test-01.ipynb located in /proj/workshop/Jupyter-demo/Test-01.ipynb
You can browse in jupyter to a test notebook in /proj/workshop/Jupyter-demo/Test-01.ipynb

Exercise 2: Understand IDEs on Bianca¶

Learning objectives

Explore the UPPMAX documentation
Understand why to use an IDE
Understand why not to use an IDE on Bianca
Understand when to run an IDE on a login node
Understand when to use an interactive session
Understand how to find out an interactive session is active

Try to answer the questions below. Be generous in accepting you answer. If you have no idea, use the UPPMAX documentation of the IDEs on Bianca. When done, run the other two IDEs on Bianca

Why use an IDE?

It makes new Bianca users feel comfortable, as an IDE is a recognizable environment. Also, the terminal can be daunting to some.

Additionally, an IDE allows one to do runtime debugging, i.e. running through code line-by-line and/or up/down the so-called call stack.

Why not always use an IDE?

Using an IDE on Bianca is cumbersome and there are superior ways to develop code on Bianca, as -for example- taught in the UPPMAX 'Programming Formalisms' course.

Is it OK to run IDEs on a login node? Why yes/no?

No. IDEs are big programs, use an interactive session instead.

You could argue if you are the only one on a Bianca project, you code use the login node. This only works if the IDE works fine on such limited computational resources.

Why not always use an interactive session?

Because it is an inefficient use of your core hours.

An interactive session means that you use a calculation node with low efficiency: only irregularly you will use such a node to its full capacity. However, the number of core hours are registered as if the node is used at full capacity, as it is reserved to be used at that capacity.

How to find out if you are on a login or interactive node?

In the terminal, type hostname

the login node has [project]-bianca, where [project] is the name of the project, e.g. sens2023598
the interactive node has b[number] in it, where [number] is the compute node number