Re:Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code stil...
by spamizbad on Monday August 24, 2020 @01:21PM
(#24262927)
> In what way do idiots making idiotic comments about your correct code invalidate your scientific production? You can still turn out science and let people read and comment freely on it.
How would a layperson identify a faulty critique? It would be picked up by the media who would do their usual “both sides” thing.
Re:Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code stil...
by enriquto on Monday August 24, 2020 @02:02PM
(#24263433)
Not that they abstain from doing that shit today, when code is not often published.
An educated and motivated layperson at least would have the chance to learn whether the critique is faulty. Today, with secret code, it is impossible to verify for almost everybody.
In what way do idiots making idiotic comments about your correct code invalidate your scientific production? You can still turn out science and let people read and comment freely on it.
> As an example, you seem to be complaining that their Monte Carlo code has non-deterministic output when that is the entire point of Monte Carlo methods and doesn't change their result.
I guess you would not need to engage personally with the idiots at "acceleratorskeptics.com", but likely most of their critique would be easily shut off by a simple sentence such as this one. Since most of your readers would not be idiots, they could scrutinize your code and even provide that reply on your behalf. This is called the scientific method.
I agree that you produce science, not merely code. Yet, the code is part of the science and you are not really publishing anything if you hide that part. Criticizing scientific code because it is bad software engineering is like criticizing it because it uses bad typography. You should not feel attacked by that.