4 ms·

This isn't completely true. My wife is a postdoc at a medical lab at Stanford and there's a big drive to push good software practices - containerisation, tests,

by exdsq 4y ago

This isn't completely true. My wife is a postdoc at a medical lab at Stanford and there's a big drive to push good software practices - containerisation, tests, documentation, etc... and a good friend who's a postdoc in medical imaging at Oxford runs training courses for their labs software (along with following all standard engineering practices you'd see at a company). This will be subjective of where you're working and if you're driven to write good software. With the reproducibility issues in science, writing good clear software is becoming more important.

Azrael3000 4y ago
Of course my statement wasn't meant to be absolute. I come from an engineering background. I am not surprised that in a medical setting the situation is somewhat different, after all I guess the stakes there are higher. If your CFD code does not perform well, who cares. If your analysis of some medication is crap, chances somebody cares is going to be much higher. Also from experience, it helps if universities have closer ties to industry. As an industrial player you can't work with software that does not deliver reproducible results.
goodpoint 4y ago
> good software practices > containerisation Pick one.
- roguas 4y ago
  ?
sea-shunned 4y ago
I'll agree that there is increasing emphasis on reproducibility and _useable_ software in academia. Writing documentation, unit tests etc. is still not really rewarded properly, but at least within the current paradigm such efforts are often rewarded with more users (and therefore citations) which is rewarded. Soon, hopefully, it'll be recognised more directly. Also, I'm currently a postdoc in medical imaging at UCL, super interested in learning a little more about the group in Oxford you mentioned if you're OK with sharing a link/group name? I may be able to guess but just want to check!
- xmzx 4y ago
  Sounds exactly like industry.

by exdsq 4y ago

Azrael3000 4y ago

Of course my statement wasn't meant to be absolute. I come from an engineering background. I am not surprised that in a medical setting the situation is somewhat different, after all I guess the stakes there are higher. If your CFD code does not perform well, who cares. If your analysis of some medication is crap, chances somebody cares is going to be much higher. Also from experience, it helps if universities have closer ties to industry. As an industrial player you can't work with software that does not deliver reproducible results.

goodpoint 4y ago

> good software practices > containerisation Pick one.

roguas 4y ago
?

sea-shunned 4y ago

I'll agree that there is increasing emphasis on reproducibility and _useable_ software in academia. Writing documentation, unit tests etc. is still not really rewarded properly, but at least within the current paradigm such efforts are often rewarded with more users (and therefore citations) which is rewarded. Soon, hopefully, it'll be recognised more directly. Also, I'm currently a postdoc in medical imaging at UCL, super interested in learning a little more about the group in Oxford you mentioned if you're OK with sharing a link/group name? I may be able to guess but just want to check!

xmzx 4y ago
Sounds exactly like industry.