It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

Re:It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (... by maest on Sunday May 17, 2020 @07:13AM (#23211189)

Some of the commenters in that issue have a very regressive and myopic stance. Raising such a public ruckus will heavily disincentivise scientists from publishing their code in the future. Decisions will still be made, but in the dark. There's a certain amount of self-stroking going on there with people feeling better by putting down code produced by non-professional programmers.

A much better response would be:

1. Scrutinise end users of the code: demand that governments only use this data if proper due dil has been carried out.

2. Submit code improvements.

3. (maybe) Demand that peer reviewers are more rigorous when checking the way results are generated. The issue with this is that this would also be a strong disincentive for scientist to publish their work.

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Re:It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (... by dirtydroog on Sunday May 17, 2020 @10:09AM (#23212104)

Well, there was this situation a few years ago https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/17/4234136/excel-calculation...

While the tone of the covid model scrutiny leaves a lot to be desired it is understandable seeing as how the results are affecting the entire world. The situation is unprecedented.

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Re:It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (... by maest on Sunday May 17, 2020 @11:06AM (#23212502)

I don't think anyone is saying the code can't be better or even that the results might be wrong (I don't know as I haven't spent much time going through the codebase).

My meta point is that people are:

1. pressuring and blaming the wrong party. 2. doings something which will have an unintended strongly negative consequence (make scientists averse to publishing their code).

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