Behind the scenes: the struggle for each paper (2021)

[2021]

No way - reading this I thought I recalled one of the papers (Starcraft from the Stands). Pulled up my Zotero library, and sure enough, I cited it in my BA thesis almost ten years ago.

What a pleasant coincidence - thanks for the contribution!

I had an assignment in the OMSCS course where we had to turn the results of a project into a paper and a presentation. It was eye opening on why so many CS papers are difficult to decipher.

I’m used to writing on the web where the scroll is unlimited and everything is hyperlink able and potentially interactive. Journal papers are limited by length and so was our assignment. I had to cut virtually all helpful explanation needed to reproduce my results which was deeply frustrating. We were implementing an algorithm based on another paper and it was hard because key details were omitted or assumptions not stated. After that exercise I have to think some of it was intentional to get it down to size.

I find most people aren’t good at technical communication and teaching others without a LOT of practice. Even then it requires feedback and iteration to make sure the ideas are communicated well. Forcing people to be more succinct and omit details makes the final product worse to consume. I don’t know how common such limitations are these days, but I do know that the average paper is still out of reach of the average programmer (where it would likely have the most benefit).

Yep... Everyone in academia complains about publishing papers, about the high prices of publishing, about "publish or perish", and then when they come high enough in "academia", require the same pain from the newcomers. It's like a closed circle of people both requiring papers for maintaining and advancing your carreer and at the same time complaining about those papers (and the publishing process), and not even thinking about some kind of "change".