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This mindset is also true for many researchers who code. Professional programmers make fun of research code but actually the dirty way is desirable considering

by j7ake 4y ago

This mindset is also true for many researchers who code. Professional programmers make fun of research code but actually the dirty way is desirable considering that research is about prototyping, tweaking, and in small groups.

diarrhea 4y ago
To that I say: there's dirty code -- then there's researchers' code. It can be a whole new level, far beyond just copy-paste and other superficial sins.
- salawat 4y ago
  Research code has different priorities. I have a set of repos I pull down for vivisecting software projects. They would be horrific to anyone else. I do horrible things to other peoples' code. Idioms clash, the style and messaging and comments can seem schizophrenic, and you'll run into things that'll send professionaal coders running like custom instrumented versions of the language runtime. Everything that can be done wrong in them, generally is, and it's tuned for one thing. Figuring out how to read it, why it works, and where to poke it to change it. I'm one of those people who'll sit down with an entire rcosystem of code and go Dr. Moreau on it. ...Then I turn around and push the well documented, polished, minimum viable changeset into the professional repo, and lock away the horrible atrocities I have wrought far from the eyes of Man, hopefully well enough that only God will eventually pass judgement.
Silhouette 4y ago
Professional programmers make fun of research code but actually the dirty way is desirable considering that research is about prototyping, tweaking, and in small groups. Until say a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic comes along and facing the prospect of literally millions of people dying governments turn to those researchers for advice. Then suddenly some program that is thousands of lines long in a single file and reads like an entry to the IOCCC that has evolved over many years with no real peer review or test strategy or anything resembling formal verification to implement the researcher's calculations becomes the foundation for major public policy decisions that can profoundly affect the way of life of entire societies for years. At least we all know that hacky code written by non-expert programmers without any tests, review or other verification never has bugs that could cause it to output incorrect results. Code written by academics in "research" style is fine when the results are only of academic interest but it's insanely dangerous to apply the same low standards if the results are going to be used for something that actually matters.

by j7ake 4y ago

diarrhea 4y ago

To that I say: there's dirty code -- then there's researchers' code. It can be a whole new level, far beyond just copy-paste and other superficial sins.

salawat 4y ago
Research code has different priorities. I have a set of repos I pull down for vivisecting software projects. They would be horrific to anyone else. I do horrible things to other peoples' code. Idioms clash, the style and messaging and comments can seem schizophrenic, and you'll run into things that'll send professionaal coders running like custom instrumented versions of the language runtime. Everything that can be done wrong in them, generally is, and it's tuned for one thing. Figuring out how to read it, why it works, and where to poke it to change it. I'm one of those people who'll sit down with an entire rcosystem of code and go Dr. Moreau on it. ...Then I turn around and push the well documented, polished, minimum viable changeset into the professional repo, and lock away the horrible atrocities I have wrought far from the eyes of Man, hopefully well enough that only God will eventually pass judgement.

Silhouette 4y ago

Professional programmers make fun of research code but actually the dirty way is desirable considering that research is about prototyping, tweaking, and in small groups. Until say a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic comes along and facing the prospect of literally millions of people dying governments turn to those researchers for advice. Then suddenly some program that is thousands of lines long in a single file and reads like an entry to the IOCCC that has evolved over many years with no real peer review or test strategy or anything resembling formal verification to implement the researcher's calculations becomes the foundation for major public policy decisions that can profoundly affect the way of life of entire societies for years. At least we all know that hacky code written by non-expert programmers without any tests, review or other verification never has bugs that could cause it to output incorrect results. Code written by academics in "research" style is fine when the results are only of academic interest but it's insanely dangerous to apply the same low standards if the results are going to be used for something that actually matters.