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Why scientific programming does not compute

nature.com

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Re: Why scientific programming does not compute

#2

Post by saulrh »

Something I heard from one of my professors once: "A programmer alone has a good chance of getting a good job. A scientist alone has a good chance of getting a good job. A scientist that can program, or a programmer that can do science, is the most valuable person in the building."

Re: Why scientific programming does not compute

#4

Post by nkassis »

saulrh wrote: post #2

Something I heard from one of my professors once: "A programmer alone has a good chance of getting a good job. A scientist alone has a good chance of getting a good job. A scientist that can program, or a programmer that can do science, is the most valuable person in the building."

This is so true. I work in a research lab and I'm trying to interest myself more to the science and it's really helping my coding work. It's easier to improve software when you know what your users need.

Re: Why scientific programming does not compute

#5

Post by bh42222 »

As a general rule, researchers do not test or document their programs rigorously, and they rarely release their codes, making it almost impossible to reproduce and verify published results generated by scientific software, say computer scientists.

Just stop doing that!

Seriously, testing is not wasted effort and for any project that's large enough it's not slowing you down. For a very small and simple project testing might slow you down, for bigger things - testing makes you faster! And the same goes for documentation. And full source code should be part of every paper.

Many programmers in industry are also trained to annotate their code clearly, so that others can understand its function and easily build on it.

No, you document code primarily so YOU can understand it yourself. Debugging is twice as hard as coding, so if you're just smart enough to code it, you have no hope of debugging it.

Re: Why scientific programming does not compute

#6

Post by gte910h »

I want to write a "software style guide" for journalists and their editors.

Software and Code are both mass nouns in technical language.

"Code" can be in programs (aka, things that run), libraries (things that other programmers can use to make programs), or in samples to show people how to do things in their programs or libraries. Some people call short programs scripts.

When you feel you should pluralize "software", you're doing something wrong. You might want to use the word programs, you might want to use the word products, you might want to just use it like a mass noun "It turns out, thieves broke into the facility and stole some of the water", etc when talking about a theft of software "It turns out, thieves broken into the facility and stole some of the software".

Re: Why scientific programming does not compute

#7

Post by szany »

gte910h wrote: post #6

I want to write a "software style guide" for journalists and their editors. Software and Code are both mass nouns in technical language. "Code" can be in programs (aka, things that run), libraries (things that other programmers can use to make programs), or in samples to show people how to do things in their programs or libraries. Some people call short programs scripts. When you feel you should pluralize "software",…

Actually it's a science thing. In a scientific context "code" is understood to mean "program". For example: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22population+synthesis+...

I'm not sure why this is though.

Re: Why scientific programming does not compute

#9

Post by ahi »

gte910h wrote: post #6

I want to write a "software style guide" for journalists and their editors. Software and Code are both mass nouns in technical language. "Code" can be in programs (aka, things that run), libraries (things that other programmers can use to make programs), or in samples to show people how to do things in their programs or libraries. Some people call short programs scripts. When you feel you should pluralize "software",…

"he attempted to correct a code analysing weather-station data from Mexico."

This annoys me, and it is everywhere. It indicates the writer has no idea what they're writing about and presumes that it's not a process but a matter of getting the right answer. "Hold on a sec, let me get out my Little Orphan Annie's Secret Decoder Ring."

(sibling deleted and moved here)

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