Update 2024-08-13-llnl-workshop-blog-post.md

_posts/2024/08/2024-08-13-llnl-workshop-blog-post.md

@@ -11,32 +11,33 @@ tags: ["HPC Carpentry", "Lesson Program Implementation"]
 ## HPC Carpentry at LLNL
 
 In the first week of June, 2024, instructors from [HPC Carpentry][hpcc]
-taught our full workflow workshop for the first time, not once but twice,
-over a four-day stint at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
+taught our full workflow workshop for the first time. Over a four-day
+stint at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we delivered this
+content not once, but twice!
 
 It was immensely rewarding to see all this material come together in
-one place, and I think we served our learners pretty well, and learned
-a few lessons relevant to future workshops. Traveling to teach in person,
-while not without hiccups, was extremely worthwhile.
+one place. Traveling to teach in person, while not without hiccups, was
+extremely worthwhile. We believe we served our learners pretty well, and
+we learned a few lessons relevant to future workshops.
 
 ### Workshop Structure
 
 Each workshop ran over two days. On the first day, we did the [Unix Shell
 intro][shell] lesson from Software Carpentry in the morning, and our own
 [HPC Intro][intro] lesson in the afternoon. On the second day, we did a
 variant of the [workflow lesson][work], adapted for the Maestro workflow
-tool (rather than Snakemake), because it is developed and widely used at LLNL.
+tool (rather than Snakemake), because it is developed and used at LLNL.
 
 The instructor team consisted of Andrew Reid and Trevor Keller from
 the HPC Carpentry steering committee, and Jane Herriman from LLNL,
 along with helpers from the LLNL community.
 
 While split-terminal tools exist, we used vanilla [tmux][tmux] with two
 terminals attached to the same session. This allowed the instructors to type on
-their own laptop, with the lesson webpage alongside, while learners followed
-along on the enhanced terminal displayed at the front of the room. Note:
-to "scroll up" in `tmux`, press <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>b</kbd>, <kbd>[</kbd>,
-then arrow-key around.
+their own laptop while referencing the lesson webpage and selectively sharing
+the terminal. Learners followed along on the enhanced terminal displayed at the
+front of the room. Note: to "scroll up" in `tmux`, press 
+<kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>b</kbd>, <kbd>[</kbd>, then arrow-key around.
 
 #### Maestro
 
@@ -55,14 +56,14 @@ jobs.
 Learners had a range of backgrounds, from undergraduate bio-informatics
 students to experienced Linux HPC users. The lessons generally went
 at a slightly faster pace than expected, without leaving anyone
-behind. This was in part because access to the LLNL system was by means
-of pre-authorized RSA tokens, removing a lot of the friction from the
-initial connection process that has been time-consuming in other versions
-of the workshop. The instructors live-coded plenty of mistakes, opening
+behind. This was in part because access to LLNL's system `Ruby` was by means
+of pre-authorized RSA tokens, removing a lot of the friction
+from the initial connection process that has been time-consuming in other
+versions of the workshop. The instructors live-coded plenty of mistakes, opening
 discussions on some interesting tangential topics. LLNL runs a pool of "login
-nodes," rather than a single machine, which made for interesting, early
-discussion of networked filesystems. The sheer number of machines also made the
-output of `sinfo` tricky to comprehend at-a-glance, which is awesome.
+nodes" per HPC system, rather than a single machine, which made for interesting,
+early discussion of networked filesystems. The sheer number of nodes also made
+the output of `sinfo` tricky to comprehend at-a-glance, which is awesome.
 
 ### Lesson Feedback
 
@@ -77,7 +78,7 @@ missed. The Workflow lesson differs in this respect from the Shell and
 HPC intro lessons, where later steps can better stand on their own.
 
 The solution to this, which we already started to implement for the
-second workshop, was to have a shared on-line notepad with "checkpoint"
+second workshop, was to have a shared online notepad with "checkpoint"
 versions of the file, to which learners can refer if they fall behind,
 with helpers bridging the content gap for them. Also, LLNL supports and
 uses the [`give`][give] tool, allowing users to easily pass files around: