Introduction

Green software for practitioners (LFC131) is a free training course offered by the linuxfoundation.org that introduces you to the basic concepts a software practitioner needs to know to build, maintain and run greener applications. At least that's what the tag line says.

It's a self paced course with 2 hours of course material with a exam at the end. You are also have unlimited attempts at the exam should you not pass the first time. You will receive a digital badge upon successful completion of the exam. As I recall you need 90% passing grade on the final exam to pass.

Content

The course is divided into 8 sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Carbon Efficiency
  3. Energy Efficiency
  4. Carbon Awareness
  5. Hardware Efficiency
  6. Measurement
  7. Climate Commitments
  8. Final Exam

Be prepared to be hit with a barrage of acronyms. As part of the course you will have access to some resources. LFC131 Course Resources that should be in the resources section. This is useful as it has useful links, glossary and useful terms that most of the course covers (screenshot below).

Thoughts

This course is more theory and awareness than it is learning a practical skill. As someone who likes to learn practical skills and apply it to help reinforce what I've just learnt, it would be good to see a continuation that did apply practical examples, such as monitoring techniques, collecting metric and analysis of that data.

Something that came to mind also is how most hardware electrical appliances will have eco mode, but we don't really have a standard in the software world. It would be interesting to see more apps/software incorporate this.

As I type this I recall seeing a setting in windows 11, under the Power & battery section... 'Energy recommendations'. Also quite useful for seeing power/battery usage and which apps are are consuming the most (looking at you Chrome 🤨)

The image below wasn't all green ticks when I first went in, but felt my OCD getting triggered and applied them all.

Summary

As most companies are becoming climate conscious, departments will have been created to focus on this area and as part of their job is to educate everyone about the climate and we can do.

The Green software for practitioners (LFC131) does a good job at getting people on the same page, at least for understanding what people are talking about when acronyms are thrown all over the place 😆.

If you have a few hours, it's worth taking some time to have a look, it is free after all and you get a shiny digital badge at the end.

Links