[SciPy-user] SciPy Journal

[massimo sandal]

Hi,

As a humble but happy SciPy user, I have some reservations about this 
project. I didn't notice the discussion before, so maybe I'm talking 
about points already discussed; however...

 > Perhaps we
> could also accept papers that describe code that depends on NumPy / 
> SciPy that is also easily available.

I'd second that for sure. People should see what it is possible to do 
with scipy, not only see what is in scipy.

> 3) I'd like to make a requirement for inclusion of new code in SciPy 
> that it have an associated journal article describing the algorithms, 
> design approach, etc.  I don't see this journal article as being 
> user-interface documentation for the code.  I see this is as a place to 
> describe why the code is organized as it is and to detail any algorithms 
> that are used. 

This looks hellish to me. People have already (often) an hard time 
contributing to OSS projects, for varous reasons, time being one of the 
most scarce resources. Requiring them *not only* to write documentation 
(which is good and must be required) but to write an article too seems 
at risk of putting a lot of people off.

Why description of algorithms etc. cannot be made inside official 
documentation/wiki/website?

> 4) The purpose of the journal as I see it is to
> 
>     a) provide someplace to document what is actually done in SciPy and 
> related software.

Why cannot this be done in a wiki/website/changelog?

>     b) provide a teaching tool of numerical methods with actual "people 
> use-it" code that would be
>        useful to researchers, students, and professionals.

Why cannot this be done in a wiki/website?

>     c) hopefully clever new algorithms will be developed for SciPy by 
> people using Python
>        that could be show-cased here

Why having a journal will help developing clever new algorithms?

>     d) provide a peer-review publication opportunity for people who 
> contribute to open-source software

This is probably the most interesting aspect. Are you willing to do an 
official, peer-reviewed academic journal that can be, for example, cited 
and that will be indexed by databases like PubMed, Scirus and ISI Web Of 
Science, for example?

If yes, I second that (albeit I find a Scipy Journal an extremely small 
niche -perhaps a Python Scientific Programming Journal, extended to 
non-scipy projects, would be better). If not, I don't understand what's 
the point.

> The SciPy Journal would be a great place to document both of these 
> things while describing the spline interpolation design of scipy.interpolate

Why a well made wiki page cannot be a great place?

> It is true that I could submit this stuff to other journals, but it 
> seems like that doing that makes the information harder to find in the 
> future and not easier.  I'm also dissatisfied with how information 
> exclusionary academic journals seem to be.  They are catching up, but 
> they are still not as accessible as other things available on the internet.
> 
> Given the open nature of most scientific research, it is remarkable that 
> getting access to the information is not as easy as it should be with 
> modern search engines (if your internet domain does not subscribe to the 
> e-journal). 

That's exactly why I dislike the idea of a journal. Scientific research 
is beginning to move very slowly but steadily away from the classic 
"academic journal" idea. arXiv, PLoS and company are just the beginning. 
  In the not-so-distant future probably most scientific debate and 
publishing will go purely web, on collaborative websites, with journals 
just being places where already done discussions etc. will be somehow 
officialized. So that's why I do not second the idea of a journal. It 
just makes sense no more. A well done, collaborative (wiki or wiki-like) 
web site would be much friendlier and better.

> Comments and feedback is welcome.  

Here is mine, even if not so positive :)

m.

-- 
Massimo Sandal
University of Bologna
Department of Biochemistry "G.Moruzzi"

snail mail:
Via Irnerio 48, 40126 Bologna, Italy

email:
massimo.sandal at unibo.it

tel: +39-051-2094388
fax: +39-051-2094387
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