CCL: Science code manifesto



Allow me to be drastic here.

In my opinion this is a quite absurd discussion. Having the ability to make code transparent for others to reuse and build on top of is obviously way better for science than having black boxes. It is not needed to provide the ability to the referee (who by definition is a busy guy) to rerun the calculations, but to the scientific community as a whole. It may be the time already to reduce the often over-critic referee system and move to a more open science schema. Repositories for code have been extremely useful in the past and I think being concerned about the ability of the scientific community to improve our results is way more positive that believing that we and only we can run a code and understand its results.

Having myself a foot in enterpreneourship in addition to academia, I think that closing/selling code is futurless in a world with tens of thousands of developers ready for better implementations for each new idea. What makes sense is understanding the possible use of each technology, not closing them in a useless effort of overprotection.

So, the need for the manifesto is clear. Start opening our eyes to a wider conception of science, far from egoistic and closed minded uses of it. The system should follow this, one day or another.



2011/10/17 Pedro Silva pedros^ufp.edu.pt <owner-chemistry|*|ccl.net>

Sent to CCL by: Pedro Silva [pedros(_)ufp.edu.pt]
2011/10/17 João Brandão jbrandao+/-ualg.pt <owner-chemistry^-^ccl.net>:
> Sorry, but I disagree.
>
> "but if there are real concerns about the work, it is necessary that the
> scientific
> community can look seriously at the code to see exactly what the program is
> doing."
>
> In my opinion:
> If anyone has real concerns about any work, the best way for science
> development is to write (or use) a different code and compare the results.
>

The problem is: if the results do not agree with each other, how can
you adjudicate between the competing claims without access to the
code?



-= This is automatically added to each message by the mailing script =-
E-mail to subscribers: CHEMISTRY|*|ccl.net or use:
     http://www.ccl.net/cgi-bin/ccl/send_ccl_message

E-mail to administrators: CHEMISTRY-REQUEST|*|ccl.net or use
     http://www.ccl.net/cgi-bin/ccl/send_ccl_message

Subscribe/Unsubscribe:
     http://www.ccl.net/chemistry/sub_unsub.shtml

Before posting, check wait time at: http://www.ccl.net

Job: http://www.ccl.net/jobs
Conferences: http://server.ccl.net/chemistry/announcements/conferences/

Search Messages: http://www.ccl.net/chemistry/searchccl/index.shtml
     http://www.ccl.net/spammers.txt

RTFI: http://www.ccl.net/chemistry/aboutccl/instructions/





--
--
Jordi Villà i Freixa
Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics lab
Research Program on Biomedical Informatics (GRIB) - IMIM/UPF
Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona
C/ Doctor Aiguader, 88; 08003 Barcelona (Spain)
Tel: +34 93 316 0504 // Fax: +34 93 316 0550
e-mail: jvilla|*|imim.es http://cbbl.imim.es