3 ms·

I don't think that a startup can solve their coding problems. Only scientists can solve their own coding problems by having the diligence and attention to detai

by woah 11y ago

I don't think that a startup can solve their coding problems. Only scientists can solve their own coding problems by having the diligence and attention to detail that one would expect of a high school dropout with 2 weeks of a coding bootcamp under their belt.

mbostleman 11y ago
Exactly. The root problem is that they're just not scientists.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  "The code is bad therefore it's not science" is a questionable and even arrogant attitude. In more cases than not, the software is doing something that was previously done by hand by some grad student or support staff(1). If those people made a mistake, then tough luck. Hopefully you'd catch it with a sanity check on the output. Were those people who relied on manual labor for centuries before the invention of modern computers not doing science? Absurd. IMO, what's happening is that scientists are doing the same sort of validation that they always did -- placing no trust in the process (the code), and instead looking at checkpoints in the computation process and sanity checking the final output. None of this is to say that there isn't room for improvement -- there is. But it's possible to do great science while writing shitty code. Hell, it's possible to do great Computer Science while writing shitty code! (1) The vast majority of scientists programming are not, in fact, doing anything revolutionary with computation. It's just a more efficient way of doing what they used to do by hand. And those that are using code in an essential way typically (not always) have higher quality code.
grhmc 11y ago
What I mean by that is: The startup I work at employees scientists, therefore the scientists are part of the startup, and it is our collective responsibility to create an atmosphere of good science. Creating that atmosphere, in the face of years of habits and history, is a very difficult problem for a startup to solve.

by woah 11y ago

mbostleman 11y ago

Exactly. The root problem is that they're just not scientists.

nmrm2 11y ago
"The code is bad therefore it's not science" is a questionable and even arrogant attitude. In more cases than not, the software is doing something that was previously done by hand by some grad student or support staff(1). If those people made a mistake, then tough luck. Hopefully you'd catch it with a sanity check on the output. Were those people who relied on manual labor for centuries before the invention of modern computers not doing science? Absurd. IMO, what's happening is that scientists are doing the same sort of validation that they always did -- placing no trust in the process (the code), and instead looking at checkpoints in the computation process and sanity checking the final output. None of this is to say that there isn't room for improvement -- there is. But it's possible to do great science while writing shitty code. Hell, it's possible to do great Computer Science while writing shitty code! (1) The vast majority of scientists programming are not, in fact, doing anything revolutionary with computation. It's just a more efficient way of doing what they used to do by hand. And those that are using code in an essential way typically (not always) have higher quality code.

grhmc 11y ago

What I mean by that is: The startup I work at employees scientists, therefore the scientists are part of the startup, and it is our collective responsibility to create an atmosphere of good science. Creating that atmosphere, in the face of years of habits and history, is a very difficult problem for a startup to solve.