Diagonalizing the 2x2 decision matrix

It’s probably occurred to you that I’ve left you with four choices:

Command-line	Notebook
ROOT C++	ROOT C++
Python with ROOT	Python with ROOT

This tutorial is already too long, and I’ve taken longer than I should have to offer you too many options. For simplicity, I’ve chosen to present ROOT C++ on the command line in The C++ Path, and Python with ROOT in a Jupyter notebook in The Python Path.

If you choose to pursue one of the “off-diagonal” choices, you won’t have much trouble following The C++ Path or The Python Path. You were previously introduced to ROOT C++ in a notebook. To run Python with ROOT on the command line (including magic commands), the following will set you up on a Nevis particle-physics system:

> module load root
> ipython

The C++ Path and The Python Path present the same commands, exercises, and footnotes.1 Pick which language you want to learn and go there.

You might even be able to do both of these parts; once you’ve mastered C++, Python is pretty easy!

Figure 22: https://xkcd.com/184/ by Randall Munroe

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1

The xkcd cartoons in the two parts are different, to give you an incentive to skim both.