Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code still run?
This article brings up scientific code from 10 years ago, but how about code from .. right now? Scientists really need to publish their code artifacts, and we can no longer just say "Well they're scientists or mathematicians" and allow that as an excuse for terrible code with no testing specs. Take this for example:https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/blob/e8f7864ad150f40022...This was used by the Imperial College for COVID-19 predictions. It has race conditions, seeds the model multiple times, and therefore has totally non-deterministic results[0]. Also, this is the cleaned up repo. The original is not available[1].A lot of my homework from over 10 years ago still runs (Some require the right Docker container: https://github.com/sumdog/assignments/). If journals really care about the reproducibility crisis, artifact reviews need to be part of the editorial process. Scientific code needs to have tests, a minimal amount of test coverage, and code/data used really need to be published and run by volunteers/editors in the same way papers are reviewed, even for non-computer science journals.[0] https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/[1] https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/179