On Wed, Mar 02, 2016 at 10:51:45AM -0800, Steven Haddock wrote: > It is interesting how this has morphed into a discussion of ways to convince > / teach git to skeptics, but I must say I agreed with a lot of the points in > the RajLab post. > > Taking a realistic and practical approach to use of computing tools is not > something that needs to be shot down (people sound sensitive!). Even if you > can???t type `make paper` to recapitulate your work, you can still be doing > good science???
http://rajlaboratory.blogspot.com/2016/02/from-reproducibility-to-over.html?spref=tw """ You know what I'm talking about: its the idea of turning your entire paper into a program, so you just type "make paper" and out pops the fully formed and formatted manuscript. Fine in the abstract, but in a line of work (like many others) in which time is our most precious commodity, these compulsions represent a complete failure to correctly measure opportunity costs. """ """ I???m just going to come right out and say that for the majority of computational projects (at least in our lab), version control is a waste of time. """ """ In fact, some might say you???re more smart, because you don???t let command-line ethos/ideology get in the way of actually getting things done??? :) """ I don't think it's a bad thing to push against these kinds of statements, especially when my personal experience and that of many others suggests that, at the very least, the author is missing a few big things. My initial Twitter response was definitely overboard; I was in a bad mood, and had just put a reasonably annoying amount of effort into a proposal on exactly this subject. I'll try to do better (I _am_ trying, believe me ;). That having been said, I don't think the blog post acknowleges or confronts the real arguments and the long history of discussions about correctness and repeatability, and I provided some intro links to that literature that I hope people read and think about in the context of science. My personal experience with computational papers (mine and others) suggests that we have a long way to go before most work is even vaguely repeatable. best, --titus -- C. Titus Brown, [email protected]
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