[R] Why software fails in scientific research

[Gavin Simpson]

On Wed, 2010-06-30 at 11:17 -0700, Bert Gunter wrote:
> Just one small additional note below ...
> 
> Bert Gunter
> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>  
> 
> "But a lot of academics are not going to "waste" their time documenting code
> 
> properly, so others can reap the benefits of it. They would rather get on
> with 
> the next project, to get the next paper. "
> 
> 
> -- Indeed. My personal experience over 3 decades in industrial (private)
> research is that data analysis is viewed as relatively
> unimportant/straightforward/pedestrian and is left to technicians (or
> postdocs) -- often with what is done being largely dictated by the
> conventions of a particular journal or discipline. The lab heads and
> research directors are responsible for the grand research strategies,
> managing resources, etc. and don't want to waste much time on something that
> routine. So worrying about reproducibility of data analysis "code" (if there
> is any, given the use of GUI software like Excel) falls beneath their radar.
> 
> Clearly there are disciplines (e.g. ecology?) where this may NOT be the
> case.

If ecology is anything to go by (and I am an ecologist, sort of, just
about), there is a large body of the community doing things because i)
that is how they've always been done, or ii) because that's what
reviewers/editors expect etc. with a much smaller group of researchers
pushing at the boundaries (of their field) to use techniques
statisticians and the like have been using for a very long time.

Reproducible research is still very much in the (very, very) small
minority of the work I come across reviewing papers etc. But I am
encouraged by the number of people I know who are starting to use tools
like R to conduct their research.

> -- Bert

G

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