From owner-chemistry@ccl.net Tue Oct 18 18:09:00 2016 From: "Jim Kress jimkress35#gmail.com" To: CCL Subject: CCL: CCL #DFT16poll results are out Message-Id: <-52417-161018170341-20713-JogCPQK5nTkootXxHc970g++server.ccl.net> X-Original-From: "Jim Kress" Content-Language: en-us Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2016 17:03:19 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sent to CCL by: "Jim Kress" [jimkress35|-|gmail.com] Lehtola, It's easy to complain and point out flaws. I HAVE YET TO SEE YOUR SOLUTION. Jim Kress -----Original Message----- > From: owner-chemistry+jimkress35==gmail.com:ccl.net [mailto:owner-chemistry+jimkress35==gmail.com:ccl.net] On Behalf Of Susi Lehtola susi.lehtola _ alumni.helsinki.fi Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 11:33 AM To: Kress, Jim Subject: CCL: CCL #DFT16poll results are out Sent to CCL by: Susi Lehtola [susi.lehtola]^[alumni.helsinki.fi] On 10/17/2016 11:59 PM, Marcel Swart marcel.swart-#-icrea.cat wrote: > Finally, I would like to remind the blog entry on Nature Chemistry's The Sceptical Chymist: > http://blogs.nature.com/thescepticalchymist/2014/11/five-years-of-poll > ing-the-computational- > chemistry-community.html > where many arguments pro and contra have been put forward. To quote one of the godfathers of DFT: > > The DFT popularity poll is somewhat like citation analysis: It > measures (but in a different way) how well a functional has been > received by a set of readers and users. There are many reasons why > some functionals are received better than others: accuracy, > reliability, wide applicability, computational efficiency, > well-founded construction, availability in standard codes, reputation > of the functional and its authors, historical priority, novelty, and > even hype. The poll has to be seen as measuring all these things, and > perhaps more. To the extent that the polled scientists use rational > criteria, the results of the poll can point other scientists toward > good or interesting functionals (John Perdew, 2014) Well, I'd say it boils down to just popularity (hype) and most of all, availability. Especially since most codes only have a limited few functionals available. Compare that to e.g. libxc which now has close to 400 functionals. Note: libxc is LGPL licensed, so it can be used also in closed-source and commercial codes! It's also very hard for new functionals to break through, because most people don't follow up on the literature. New review articles don't help if they aren't read. Instead of the poll bringing in new information like review articles do, it's just reinforcing old preconceptions. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Susi Lehtola, PhD Chemist Postdoctoral Fellow susi.lehtola/a\alumni.helsinki.fi Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory http://www.helsinki.fi/~jzlehtol USA -----------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.ccl.net/cgi-bin/ccl/send_ccl_messagehttp://www.ccl.net/chemistry/sub_unsub.shtmlhttp://www.ccl.net/spammers.txt