Dan Goodman on Nostr: npub1djz47…xzaaa npub1a7mgd…gj0p9 npub18ur4k…vk9ge yes, I was exaggerating a ...
npub1djz47p5rl7snw0ww033ypxws6hua9q5gw7trxmrdw877t8jxlzlsexzaaa (npub1djz…zaaa) npub1a7mgdv59qdx5p2ajp7y0wk3e7y4sw05kquew8nkw06gv99zaz5sspgj0p9 (npub1a7m…j0p9) npub18ur4k2tajs6hz2dyy0y253ahv2u8tttlc38myg80hx07jnj9vw6q0vk9ge (npub18ur…k9ge) yes, I was exaggerating a tiny bit for effect. 😉 I agree that in some cases we get some credit for the code that we write, but it's also true that it's vastly undervalued relative to its importance to science.
Let me give you an anecdote from my scientific career. In my first postdoc my supervisor and I wrote "Brian" a simulator package for spiking neural networks that has gone on to become one of the most well used in computational neuroscience. (Incidentally, we made sure to write those up as papers and they have collectively been cited thousands of times, which has been great for my career.) I was actually funded on a grant from someone more senior than my supervisor, and I had an end of year review with him. I talked all about Brian and how valuable people were already finding it, and after quietly listening he asked me "that's nice, but what work have you been doing?" He cut my funding directly after that meeting, only a few weeks before the renewal date. I wish this were just an isolated example, but my experience in science has been that very few senior people in decision-making positions have any respect for the work and importance of writing software, and that in almost all cases a junior academic would be very ill advised to spend a significant amount of their time writing and making available high quality code. I was fortunate enough to have a supervisor who finds this important, and managed to find alternative funding for me for another 3 years (partly thanks to getting an ERC). My scientific career could easily have ended right there without that luck.
Let me give you an anecdote from my scientific career. In my first postdoc my supervisor and I wrote "Brian" a simulator package for spiking neural networks that has gone on to become one of the most well used in computational neuroscience. (Incidentally, we made sure to write those up as papers and they have collectively been cited thousands of times, which has been great for my career.) I was actually funded on a grant from someone more senior than my supervisor, and I had an end of year review with him. I talked all about Brian and how valuable people were already finding it, and after quietly listening he asked me "that's nice, but what work have you been doing?" He cut my funding directly after that meeting, only a few weeks before the renewal date. I wish this were just an isolated example, but my experience in science has been that very few senior people in decision-making positions have any respect for the work and importance of writing software, and that in almost all cases a junior academic would be very ill advised to spend a significant amount of their time writing and making available high quality code. I was fortunate enough to have a supervisor who finds this important, and managed to find alternative funding for me for another 3 years (partly thanks to getting an ERC). My scientific career could easily have ended right there without that luck.