I get what he’s saying, but the “non-experts” using code to represent their models should also let outside help come when the need arises.
When your model predicts an apocalyptical scenario and government is taking drastic measures based on it, it’s a good time to expose your “non-expert code” to the software engineering communities (and all other associated fields) to take a look.
should also let outside help come when the need arises.
expose your “non-expert code” to the software engineering communities (and all other associated fields) to take a look.
1. Software engineers are expensive. Hiring them to write your code is how you end up needing even more money to do your science, and I think the software engineering world if anything can appreciate prioritizing being scrappy to get more done.
2. Open source is slow and doesn't produce consistent results in the timeframes you need in order to get things implemented in one-offs. In fact, the value you get from others looking at your code is pretty anemic unless other software engineers find your code useful, at which point they have real incentive to help you improve existing functionality instead of reinventing the wheel. I do think code should be published alongside papers as a matter of reproduceability, but I don't think opening up the code beforehand will accomplish much.
Which is all to say that while I agree with you in principle, I don't think your recommendations are practical.
I think this letter has it right: we should make better tools to help non-experts do less foot shooting. C++ is very, very foot shooty, and the usual answer of "well get better at C++" is a non-starter for non-experts.
I think there are other solutions too - software engineers with partial specializations in academic fields, volunteers, etc.
I believe this model is quite old (at least in some form) so there have been opportunities to review it. I confess I haven't looked, but I haven't heard any defects have actually been identified. If the model stood up to peer review I assume the results it produces are at least consistent with the expectations of the people who wrote the mathematical model.
Hopefully this will be a watershed moment that makes it easier to cost a research software engineer onto a grant in the future.
While I appreciate the sentiment, we can probably both see why one person offering to solve the problem for one study isn't a solution to the systemic problem.
Private funding poses all sorts of issues. Surmountable issues, but still issues once individuals are paying for reviews at scale.
I looked at the job vacancies posted on the Society for Research Software Engineering. Those with salaries listed:
Senior RSE, London: £35,965 to £52,701
Web Application Developer, London: £35,965 to £43,470
Research Software Engineer, Hannover: Salary Scale 13 TV-L (AFAICT this is €41259 to €59545)
I'm the type to be happy to take a pay cut, especially if there are work-life advantages involved. But a 80%-90% cut is asking a bit much. It's not like London's a particularly cheap place to live, either.
There is probably no funding for outside help... So they get a project fund a PhD student (or post doc) with that, this guy has to produce new results (fast) and more results, then these guys leave, next guys come..
Generally for a simulation group you would need an experienced programmer maintaining the code base, (helping) the other guys cleaning up there ideas before handover, and this as a permanent position. Experienced c++ also means not cheap. Go to you University admins and mention both shocking words (not cheap and permanent without the magic word 'professor') in one sentence, maybe he will recover from his shock in a few days.
I find this a pretty weak excuse for a high-impact epidemiological model like this. Universities are full of the brightest people you will find anywhere in society, and most universities have faculties and courses in computer science and/or software engineering. How about enforcing multi-disciplinary efforts, having computer science students work with microbiologists, and vice versa? Exchange programs between universities that specialize in one or the other?
University graduates need to do internships and a thesis anyway, so in terms of 'funding' you could argue they are basically 'free' in terms of assigning them to multi-disciplinary research.
I know I would have been delighted if someone at my university had offered me an interesting multi-disciplinary microbiology project when I was studying computer science. Instead we mostly just got boring run-of-the-mill exercises in parroting established computer-science theory...
I don't think the government is taking drastic measures based solely on this code. It's just a way to model facts we already know. We know that viruses spread exponentially, and we know what exponential growth looks like this just lets use model different assumptions to see how they affect that model.
Sorry I guess I wasn't clear. My point is that if this software was destroyed a year ago our response to the coronavirus would be substantially the same.
Basically that we are not relying on this model exclusively or even substantially to determine policy.
When your model predicts an apocalyptical scenario and government is taking drastic measures based on it, it’s a good time to expose your “non-expert code” to the software engineering communities (and all other associated fields) to take a look.