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On one hand, yes. But on the other hand, reuseable code, dependency management, linting, portability etc are not that easy problems and something junior develop
by Sebb767 6y ago
On one hand, yes. But on the other hand, reuseable code, dependency management, linting, portability etc are not that easy problems and something junior developers tend to struggle with (and its not like that problem never pops up for seniors, either). I really can't fault non-compsci scientist for not handling that problem well. Of course, part of it (like publishing the relevant code) is far easier and should be done, but some aspects are really hard.
IMO the incentive problem in science (basically number of papers and new results is what counts) also plays into this, as investing tons of time in your code gives you hardly any reward.
- dunefox 6y agoThere are tons of tutorials on using conda for dependency management, it's not rocket science. And using a linter is difficult? If a scientist needs to read and write code as part of their job then they should learn the basics of programming - that includes tools and 'best practices'.
- BeetleB 6y ago> But on the other hand, reuseable code, dependency management, linting, portability etc are not that easy problems and something junior developers tend to struggle with On the original hand, these are easier problems than all the years of math education they have. Once you're relying on simulations to get results to explain natural phenomena, it needs to be put on the same pedestal as mathematics.