So a few Scientists and a few developers met last Wednesday. It was hard to know where we were going to end and thanks so much to everyone that participated. The following is a summary of the tips we (scientist + developers) thought was a good idea
Tips for scientists writing code (1st Round):
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Talk to other scientists that work on similar projects and share a list of your most used functions (I cant remember the name of the person suggestion
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Every now and then meet up with other scientist writing similar code to you to talk specifically about the code you write, after all if you know the tools you are working with better, you are bound to be more productive
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Use source control. There are pretty good open source alternatives and many places that offer free storage. Some source control options: Git, Mercurial, subversion. Some places to host your code: github, bitbucket, google code, codeplex
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Use variable names that indicate what you are talking about.
- Some bad examples: your_cat_name, sss, ttt, etc. Some good examples: portionOfSphere, portion_of_sphere.
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In the case of IDL, avoid for loops and try to use functions
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Try to get used to reading others people code so that you realise where you can improve, or point out things that can be done i na more effective way
Help a scientist day
The above is all well and good, however. We were also thinking about collaboration. So Philippe came up with a great idea: Help a scientist day.
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A scientist submits (somewhere to be discussed) a problem she or he thinks it could be solved with some help of more developers
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people can ask questions about the idea (either technical details or just to check that its a problem similar to theirs)
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People can vote on ideas (no need to sign up )
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The ideas with most votes (that are doable) will be the ones that will be implemented by developer during “Help a Scientist Day”
So, we need to organize this day, please comment on G+ so we can get this going
Cheers