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Fernando Pérez of IPython fame wins the Free Software Foundation Award

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Re: Fernando Pérez of IPython fame wins the Free Software Foundation Award

#3

Post by naftaliharris »

I heard him speak at Stanford a few weeks ago. He made some great points about academia having a lot to learn from the open-source community. In summary, he said that academics should strive to make their research more open and reproducible, and that version control tools like git and presentation tools like IPython can help make that happen.

The talk was broadly similar to the slides I found here: http://www.stanford.edu/~vcs/AAAS2011/1102_aaas_reproducibil...

If Fernando is able to convince academics to foster the same sort of culture that the open-source community has, his influence would be very great indeed.

Re: Fernando Pérez of IPython fame wins the Free Software Foundation Award

#6

Post by takluyver »

naftaliharris wrote: post #3

I heard him speak at Stanford a few weeks ago. He made some great points about academia having a lot to learn from the open-source community. In summary, he said that academics should strive to make their research more open and reproducible, and that version control tools like git and presentation tools like IPython can help make that happen. The talk was broadly similar to the slides I found here: http://www.stanfor…

That's interesting - I've also noticed a big difference between 'release early, release often' in the open source world, and the long slow process of getting work reviewed and published in academia.

I've been wondering: could we run acadaemia without the stamp-of-approval that is publishing in a peer reviewed journal? I.e. like releasing open source software, when you've got something you're ready to share, you just publish it yourself, without having to get anyone's permission. Of course, there are other problems that would have to be overcome with that, but it could make things a lot more efficient. There are some moves in that direction - look up 'arXiv overlay journals' if you're interested.

Re: Fernando Pérez of IPython fame wins the Free Software Foundation Award

#8

Post by fperez_org »

phreeza wrote: post #7

Glad to hear this, I use ipython on a daily basis, and chatted with him at euroscipy a while back, he is a very nice guy! I think he comments on here every now and then, too, so in case you read this: Thanks and congratulations!

I think I've only commented a handful of times, I'm not really a regular. But many thanks for the kind words, and to @profjsb for the generous writeup.

As I tried to say at the meeting, this really goes to the whole team. I may have started IPython, but it's the combined talent, energy and dedication of a big team that makes it what it is today. This award is a recognition of all that work, I'm just here to pick it up :)

Re: Fernando Pérez of IPython fame wins the Free Software Foundation Award

#9

Post by jotaass »

I'd just like to add my voice to the others to say I love IPython. It's absolutely essential for my daily work, and it freed me from the shackles of Matlab. Python is a lovely language on its own, but it really shines when you add a good interactive prompt.
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