Marshall Hampton wrote: >> I too have founds bugs by reading code that I've written - usually, >> very >> early on in the development process. Note that I'm talking in the >> context >> of result verification, however. That is, when I publish a paper >> that >> depends on computations, it is incumbent upon me to verify those >> computations. I'm saying that I don't think that reading source code >> at that point is particularly necessary or useful. >> >> Mark > > Really? I find that very surprising. While it was not the primary > reason that I became interested in Sage, the ability to examine the > source code for verification purposes was a major attraction.
But reading the source still doesn't get around bugs in a compiler, bugs in supporting libraries, etc. Mark, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that a person: 1. uses software to generate a list of results, and then 2. checks these results by hand or in some way that doesn't use a computer. Step 2 is to avoid (or at least drastically cut down the chance of) errors due to any issues with a particular computation system. I agree that this should be done for published results to the extent possible (or reasonable), and that results that only rely on computational results (without independent verification) should be flagged as such. I also agree that being able to read the source code for doing step 2 is not necessary, *unless* your method of verification is to trace through the program by hand. Of course, I'm sure there are many results in many fields that would be practically impossible to independently verify in any reasonable amount of time. I suppose those people at least verify that they get the same results with completely different systems (e.g., Sage and Mathematica and Magma). Of course, since Sage interfaces with a number of different systems, it can help with this. Jason --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
