Snakemake: Focus more on why this is useful rather than details of snakemake?

[samumantha]

I really do not know how to fit the current material of snakemake episode + demo in 20 min.
I think last time I spent too much time on details, which are maybe not the point of the episode when there is no exercise.

So question to you: Does the lesson need the demo of the exercise? Going through all the steps?
I am not sure it needs it in detail, but not sure how to do it without details to be useful. Any thoughts?

[bast]

I would demonstrate a finished workflow but not all the steps and all the possibilities.

I would not try to build it up step by step from zero.

I would demonstrate:

• a workflow knows when something is done or needs to be re-done (no need to start commenting out portions)

I would discuss:

• what makes a good workflow? (e.g. if you get new data you don't need to change the scripts/workflow)
• how it can nicely deal with failures
• how parallelization is often "for free"
• any downsides to a workflow vs. script?