Publishing scientific software matters

Christophe Pradal (1, 2) , Gaël Varoquaux (3, 4) , Hans Peter Langtangen (5, 6)

1 VIRTUAL PLANTS - Modeling plant morphogenesis at different scales, from genes to phenotype
2 UMR AGAP - Amélioration génétique et adaptation des plantes méditerranéennes et tropicales
3 PARIETAL - Modelling brain structure, function and variability based on high-field MRI data
4 NEUROSPIN - Service NEUROSPIN
5 Department of Informatics [Oslo]
6 SRL - Simula Research Laboratory [Lysaker]

Software is a central part of modern scientific discovery. Software turns a theoretical model into quantitative predictions; software controls an experi- ment; and software extracts from raw data evidence supporting or rejecting a theory. As of today, scientific publications seldom discuss software in depth, maybe because it is both highly technical and a recent addition to scientific tools. But times are changing. More and more scientific investi- gators are developing software and it is important to establish norms for publication of this work.

Domaines: Modélisation et simulation

Christophe Pradal, Gaël Varoquaux, Hans Peter Langtangen. Publishing scientific software matters. Journal of computational science, 2013, 4 (5), pp.311 - 312. ⟨10.1016/j.jocs.2013.08.001⟩. ⟨hal-00858663⟩