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The fundamental problem here, as you note, is that scientists are rarely also engineers, and don't really share our desiderata. The point is to develop and publ

The fundamental problem here, as you note, is that scientists are rarely also engineers, and don't really share our desiderata. The point is to develop and publish a result, and engineering analysis code for resiliency is of secondary concern at best when that code isn't likely to need to be used again once the paper is finished. The "Software Carpentry" movement [1] has in the past decade tried to address this, as I recall. It's very much in the vein of the "basic literacy" course you suggest. I can't say how far they've gotten, and I'm no longer adjacent to academia, but based on what I do still see of academics' code, there's a long way still to go. [1] https://software-carpentry.org/ https://software-carpentry.org/

detaro 6y ago
And that scientists also are rarely supported by programmers, or if they are it's an unstable and unappreciated position.
- non-entity 6y ago
  Ive seen job listings for "scientific programmers" where what they're asking for is a scientist who happens to know a little programming.
  - detaro 6y ago
    Yeah - who then likely doesn't have that much software experience, and worse, if they want to stay a scientist such a role is often a bad career move, because they help others get ahead with their research instead of publishing their own work. Even if they build some really great domain-specific software tool in that role, it often doesn't count as much. Or it's an informal thing done by some student as a side-gig. Which can be cool, but is not a stable long-term thing. I hope there's exceptions. EDIT: weirdest example I've seen was a lab looking for sysadmins with PhD preferred. I wonder if they had some funding source that only paid for "scientists" or what was going on there...
    - mnw21cam 6y ago
      Simple answer for that. University pay scales tend to be fairly inflexible in terms of which grades you are eligible for without a PhD, if you are counted as academic staff. If you're non-academic staff (like the cleaner, the receptionist, and the central IT sysadmin) then you can be paid a fair wage based upon your experience, but if you are academic staff, then you have a hard ceiling without a PhD. An individual research group with a grant may only be able to hire academic staff, but they want a sysadmin, so in order to be able to pay them more than a pittance they would have to have a PhD.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Having had that exact experience - yeah, that can be a big problem too. Researchers and engineers can work really well together, because the strengths of each role complement the weaknesses of the other, and I think it would be very nice to see that actually happen some day.
  - detaro 6y ago
    It doesn't help with the issue of hard-to-reproduce work, but apparently working for a company making products aimed at scientists can be a place to see this happen (if the company is good about talking to customers).
    - throwanem 6y ago
      Interesting, thanks! I'll keep that in mind for when I'm next looking for a new client.
- mnw21cam 6y ago
  Being in such a position, I can say that I am appreciated, but not in a manner that results in job stability and promotion. It's a massive problem in academia, and there's an attempt to get the position recognised and call it "Research Software Engineer", with comparable opportunities for promotion and job stability as a researcher. However, it's not going massively well. Academic job progression is still almost completely purely based on the ability to get first or last author papers in top journals. I have lots of papers where I am a middle author, because I wrote the software that did the analysis that was vital for the paper to even exist, but it largely doesn't count. And I'm lucky - many software engineers don't even get put in as a middle author on the paper they contributed to.
neutronicus 6y ago
Nah. The fundamental problem is that scientific code is produced by entry-level developers: 1. Paid below-market wages 2. With no way to move up in the organization 3. With lots of non-software responsibilities 4. With an expectation of leaving the organization in six years As long as the grunt work of science is done by overworked junior scientists whose careers get thrown to the wolves no matter what they do, you're not going to get maintainable code out of it.
- throwanem 6y ago
  I mean, senior researchers in stable roles don't really do any better. Just to pick the first example off the top of my head - one of the investigators I worked with, during my year as a staff member of an academic institution most of a decade ago, is also one of my oldest friends; he's been a researcher there for what must be well past ten years by now. Despite one of his undergrad degrees being actually in CS, I still find ample reason whenever I see it to give him a hard time about the maintainability of his code. Like I said before, it's a field in which people really just don't give a damn about engineering. Which is fair! There's little reason why they should, as far as I've ever been able to see.
- jnxx 6y ago
  Even more fundamental is that there is no maintenance budget for important scientific libraries and tools. Somebody wrote them as part of their job, and the person who wrote it, is now working somewhere else.

detaro 6y ago

And that scientists also are rarely supported by programmers, or if they are it's an unstable and unappreciated position.

non-entity 6y ago
Ive seen job listings for "scientific programmers" where what they're asking for is a scientist who happens to know a little programming.
- detaro 6y ago
  Yeah - who then likely doesn't have that much software experience, and worse, if they want to stay a scientist such a role is often a bad career move, because they help others get ahead with their research instead of publishing their own work. Even if they build some really great domain-specific software tool in that role, it often doesn't count as much. Or it's an informal thing done by some student as a side-gig. Which can be cool, but is not a stable long-term thing. I hope there's exceptions. EDIT: weirdest example I've seen was a lab looking for sysadmins with PhD preferred. I wonder if they had some funding source that only paid for "scientists" or what was going on there...
  - mnw21cam 6y ago
    Simple answer for that. University pay scales tend to be fairly inflexible in terms of which grades you are eligible for without a PhD, if you are counted as academic staff. If you're non-academic staff (like the cleaner, the receptionist, and the central IT sysadmin) then you can be paid a fair wage based upon your experience, but if you are academic staff, then you have a hard ceiling without a PhD. An individual research group with a grant may only be able to hire academic staff, but they want a sysadmin, so in order to be able to pay them more than a pittance they would have to have a PhD.
throwanem 6y ago
Having had that exact experience - yeah, that can be a big problem too. Researchers and engineers can work really well together, because the strengths of each role complement the weaknesses of the other, and I think it would be very nice to see that actually happen some day.
- detaro 6y ago
  It doesn't help with the issue of hard-to-reproduce work, but apparently working for a company making products aimed at scientists can be a place to see this happen (if the company is good about talking to customers).
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Interesting, thanks! I'll keep that in mind for when I'm next looking for a new client.
mnw21cam 6y ago
Being in such a position, I can say that I am appreciated, but not in a manner that results in job stability and promotion. It's a massive problem in academia, and there's an attempt to get the position recognised and call it "Research Software Engineer", with comparable opportunities for promotion and job stability as a researcher. However, it's not going massively well. Academic job progression is still almost completely purely based on the ability to get first or last author papers in top journals. I have lots of papers where I am a middle author, because I wrote the software that did the analysis that was vital for the paper to even exist, but it largely doesn't count. And I'm lucky - many software engineers don't even get put in as a middle author on the paper they contributed to.

neutronicus 6y ago

Nah. The fundamental problem is that scientific code is produced by entry-level developers: 1. Paid below-market wages 2. With no way to move up in the organization 3. With lots of non-software responsibilities 4. With an expectation of leaving the organization in six years As long as the grunt work of science is done by overworked junior scientists whose careers get thrown to the wolves no matter what they do, you're not going to get maintainable code out of it.

throwanem 6y ago
I mean, senior researchers in stable roles don't really do any better. Just to pick the first example off the top of my head - one of the investigators I worked with, during my year as a staff member of an academic institution most of a decade ago, is also one of my oldest friends; he's been a researcher there for what must be well past ten years by now. Despite one of his undergrad degrees being actually in CS, I still find ample reason whenever I see it to give him a hard time about the maintainability of his code. Like I said before, it's a field in which people really just don't give a damn about engineering. Which is fair! There's little reason why they should, as far as I've ever been able to see.
jnxx 6y ago
Even more fundamental is that there is no maintenance budget for important scientific libraries and tools. Somebody wrote them as part of their job, and the person who wrote it, is now working somewhere else.