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I went and did a PhD in software engineering after a couple of decades working in industry and now back working in industry. Thus, I offer my comments in hinds

I went and did a PhD in software engineering after a couple of decades working in industry and now back working in industry. Thus, I offer my comments in hindsight. The primary focus of academic research is to extend the knowledge and disseminate that knowledge in the form of papers. Researchers are assessed on the basis of the number of papers they write and grants that they procure. The evaluation of the work is very much a result of the peer review process based on those papers and not the programs that might have been written in support of the core research. The general observation is that most programs written as part of some research project are a hack written to address a very specific need and fast. A common gripe is that much research is difficult to reproduce because the programs are not freely shared and/or written for non-portable environments.

Jhsto 8y ago
> A common gripe is that much research is difficult to reproduce because the programs are not freely shared and/or written for non-portable environments. This indeed is something which I've noticed and what my supervisors have made a great concern. That is, if I create hacks, I should also rigorously document how to reproduce the results. Luckily, much of this comes naturally during the paper writing process which reduces the amount of labor. Moreover, I think many times I end up learning something new or general inefficiencies in my working processes when writing documentation. I guess I will know better later the year whether academia appreciates the results of my research. Though this far, I feel much of it is like selling in general, i.e., how you frame the results as a part of the bigger picture. And I guess the peer-review process is good in the sense that someone will call you out if you try to build a claim which is completely ludicrous.

Jhsto 8y ago

> A common gripe is that much research is difficult to reproduce because the programs are not freely shared and/or written for non-portable environments. This indeed is something which I've noticed and what my supervisors have made a great concern. That is, if I create hacks, I should also rigorously document how to reproduce the results. Luckily, much of this comes naturally during the paper writing process which reduces the amount of labor. Moreover, I think many times I end up learning something new or general inefficiencies in my working processes when writing documentation. I guess I will know better later the year whether academia appreciates the results of my research. Though this far, I feel much of it is like selling in general, i.e., how you frame the results as a part of the bigger picture. And I guess the peer-review process is good in the sense that someone will call you out if you try to build a claim which is completely ludicrous.