# [Software Carpentry][]


If you are not familiar with a distributed version control system like [Mercurial][] or
[Git][], the [Software Carpentry][] program has two relevant courses you should work
through completely:

* [Software Carpentry: The Unix Shell](http://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/).
  Please work-though the course (about 4.5h) if you are not familiar with the Unix
  command line.
* [Software Carpentry: Version Control with
  Git](http://swcarpentry.github.io/git-novice/). Please work-though the course (about
  3h) if you are not familiar with [Git][].

[Software Carpentry]: <https://software-carpentry.org/> "Software Carpentry: Teaching basic lab skills for research computing"
[CoCalc]: <https://cocalc.com> "CoCalc: Collaborative Calculation and Data Science"
[GitHub]: <https://github.com> "GitHub"
[GitLab]: <https://gitlab.com> "GitLab"
[Git]: <https://git-scm.com> "Git"
[Mercurial]: <https://www.mercurial-scm.org> "Mercurial"