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My exact thoughts. This sounds like a classic example of launching a prototype created by domain specialists (biostatisticians and bioinformaticians) as product

My exact thoughts. This sounds like a classic example of launching a prototype created by domain specialists (biostatisticians and bioinformaticians) as production software and skipping on the expensive stuff, like sound development practices

gww 6y ago
There is so little emphasis in production software development in bioinformatics and biostatistics. Despite a lot of groups open sourcing their code it's is nearly unusable and not reproducible due to hard coding, ignoring edge cases, and dumping the majority of the code on a single giant R or python function.
- Scandiravian 6y ago
  That's my experience as well. My master's is in bioinformatics and I worked for several years in biotech. I got frustrated because my concerns that my team's development practices were causing issues on a regular basis, were ignored. I was continuously able to predict what issues we would run into, but no-one seemed to care - I even had a manager tell me, that it was good that our software was buggy, since the client would continue paying us to fix it I've since left the biotech industry. There's a limit to how many times I want to run my head against that particular wall
- natechols 6y ago
  It's a real problem, and I've been struggling with it for two decades, but even so I am legitimately impressed (and not in a good way) if they have 170,000 lines of Matlab code in their production software. That takes a really special combination of productivity and cluelessness, even for academic specialists. Regardless of the facts of this particular case, it should be absolutely horrifying that anyone's freedom is left up to a gigantic pile of unaudited Matlab code. (That said I am almost certain he added some zeros to the number, I have a hard time imagining what they're doing that could be that complex.)
  - Scandiravian 6y ago
    Choosing MATLAB as a language for software that could potentially lead to people dying (in areas where they still have the death penalty) is a gigantic red-flag I don't know how many job postings ask for a software engineer who knows MATLAB, but I can't recall any
antattack 6y ago
For reference, whole Tesla Autopilot is 'few hundred thousand' loc. https://youtu.be/YAtLTLiqNwg?t=947 https://youtu.be/YAtLTLiqNwg?t=947
isolli 6y ago
It also sounds exactly like Ferguson's Imperial College epidemiology model that apparently compelled politicians into imposing hard lockdowns (and was likely wrong by at least an order of magnitude): - "a single 15k line C file that had been worked on for a decade" [0] - code review of the model: [1] - corresponding HN discussion: [2] (including sad appeals to authority: you're not an epidemiologist) - other HN discussion [3] (including ridiculously blaming programmers for making C++ available to non-programmers) [0] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1254872369556074496 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1254872369556074496 [1] https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/ https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093944 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222338

gww 6y ago

There is so little emphasis in production software development in bioinformatics and biostatistics. Despite a lot of groups open sourcing their code it's is nearly unusable and not reproducible due to hard coding, ignoring edge cases, and dumping the majority of the code on a single giant R or python function.

Scandiravian 6y ago
That's my experience as well. My master's is in bioinformatics and I worked for several years in biotech. I got frustrated because my concerns that my team's development practices were causing issues on a regular basis, were ignored. I was continuously able to predict what issues we would run into, but no-one seemed to care - I even had a manager tell me, that it was good that our software was buggy, since the client would continue paying us to fix it I've since left the biotech industry. There's a limit to how many times I want to run my head against that particular wall
natechols 6y ago
It's a real problem, and I've been struggling with it for two decades, but even so I am legitimately impressed (and not in a good way) if they have 170,000 lines of Matlab code in their production software. That takes a really special combination of productivity and cluelessness, even for academic specialists. Regardless of the facts of this particular case, it should be absolutely horrifying that anyone's freedom is left up to a gigantic pile of unaudited Matlab code. (That said I am almost certain he added some zeros to the number, I have a hard time imagining what they're doing that could be that complex.)
- Scandiravian 6y ago
  Choosing MATLAB as a language for software that could potentially lead to people dying (in areas where they still have the death penalty) is a gigantic red-flag I don't know how many job postings ask for a software engineer who knows MATLAB, but I can't recall any

antattack 6y ago

For reference, whole Tesla Autopilot is 'few hundred thousand' loc. https://youtu.be/YAtLTLiqNwg?t=947 https://youtu.be/YAtLTLiqNwg?t=947

isolli 6y ago

It also sounds exactly like Ferguson's Imperial College epidemiology model that apparently compelled politicians into imposing hard lockdowns (and was likely wrong by at least an order of magnitude): - "a single 15k line C file that had been worked on for a decade" [0] - code review of the model: [1] - corresponding HN discussion: [2] (including sad appeals to authority: you're not an epidemiologist) - other HN discussion [3] (including ridiculously blaming programmers for making C++ available to non-programmers) [0] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1254872369556074496 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1254872369556074496 [1] https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/ https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093944 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222338