Welcome to the workshop

Go to https://opensafely.github.io/dummy-data-workshop to follow along.

Prerequisites

GitHub and Codespaces

We will use a GitHub repository and Codespace for this workshop. You will need a personal GitHub account. Follow the instructions to setup your codespace.

ehrql

The ehrQL code that we'll look at in this workshop is not very complicated, however, it is assumed that you are not completely new to ehrQL. If you need a reminder, please see the ehrQL cheat sheet and the ehrql documentation.

R

Some previous experience writing code in R is recommended.

Setup your codespace

Please go to https://github.com/opensafely/dummy-data-workshop/generate to create a new repository from the workshop repo. Choose any repository name, and click Create repository.

Wait for your repo to be generated.

When your new repo loads:

1. Click the Code button.
2. Click the Codespaces tab.
3. Click the "Create codespace on main".

You may see a page requesting additional permissions on opensafely/server-instructions. If so, click "Authorize and continue".

The codespace will take a few minutes to launch. Please wait!

Saving changes to your repo

If you make changes to your repo during the workshop that you would like to keep, you will need to commit and push the changes to GitHub. Follow the instructions in the OpenSAFELY tutorial for a guide on how to do that.

Notes

We'll use some icons in parts of this workshop:

For when we're looking at or modifying some code in a file.

For when we need to run a command in the terminal

Suggested exercises

Blocks like this indication suggested exercises to try, or ways to experiment; we won't necessarily have time to go through these during the workshop, but you might want to come back to them in the time at the end of the session, or afterwards.