define the workshop directory

[goi42]

In Starting With Data, learners are instructed to navigate to "the workshop directory". This phrase has not been defined in the Setup or any of the earlier lessons, as far as I can tell.

My best guess is that this refers to the zip file that can be downloaded from the Setup page, but this doesn't follow the guidance in Before we start, which suggests data be stored in the data/ subdirectory.

I think the lesson wants the learners to create an empty directory for the workshop, create a subdirectory inside it called data/, then move the downloaded files into it. If so, learners should be stepped through this process explicitly to avoid confusion.

[goi42]

https://github.com/datacarpentry/python-ecology-lesson/blob/73b8d44446812d8ec45a054077dcfb34724de946/_episodes/04-data-types-and-format.md?plain=1#L406

The Writing Out Data to CSV exercise fails with an OSError because the data_output/ directory does not exist.

Either this subdirectory should be created as part of defining the workshop directory in an earlier lesson (as described above), or instructions should be added to the lesson for how to create this subdirectory.

[goi42]

Lesson 5 repeats the Writing Out Data to CSV exercise using concatenated data frames, but this time stores the output in the data/ subdirectory instead of data_output.

It would be better to be consistent across these exercises, especially since the Before we start lesson makes a point of maintaining good directory organization.

[btovar]

@goi42 I agree with you about the consistency of data and data_output. Would you like to make a pull request to fix this one?