> Even if it seems justified to shit on the code as is (bad style, lack of comments, no tests, whatever), all it does is discourage similar companies / research

> Even if it seems justified to shit on the code as is (bad style, lack of comments, no tests, whatever), all it does is discourage similar companies / researchers / folks in academia from posting their code as well. I agree that code should be published alongside papers, and great that the Economist, being a newspaper, publishes their code too. But when it is the most reputable sources (researchers, universities etc) publishing code of quality so low cannot possibly be correct (looking at you Imperial), it totally should be scrutinised and critiqued. I think the root cause is, where research is code-based (I guess 90% of science), it should pass the most basic correctness tests before a paper is accepted, or indeed turned into national policy. There are many angles to bite this apple from, but what remains unacceptable is shit code being taken at face value.