A Code Glitch May Have Caused Errors in More Than a Hundred Published Studies
I&#x27;ve implemented algorithms I dug out of original research papers, which often included sample code.  (That&#x27;s why I first learned to read Fortran!)  I&#x27;ve almost never gotten results that match the authors&#x27; exactly.  Sometimes the bugs are obvious, and sometimes they&#x27;re subtle.  I&#x27;d estimate that 100% of sample implementations in published research papers have bugs.  Researchers, even in computer science, are usually not skilled programmers.  The product for them is the paper, not a program.<p>It&#x27;s the same category of problem as &quot;enterprise software&quot;.  Whenever the <i>customer</i> is not the <i>user</i>, the user gets screwed.  With research, the customer is the journal.