one acute rewording request, one milder one, and short elaboration on refactoring

[michelemartone]

1. Suggestion for avoiding the "digital research" formulation, which is not good terminology.
2. Add mention to the boring reality of software maintenance and refactoring tools.

3. I find this importnat: alternatives to avoid misuse of word 'ecosystem'; explained here by me:

   In the English language, the word ecosystem has been introduced around

   1935. During those 89 years, it has mostly being used to describe the system that organisms (that is, biological living systems) form with their environments. In the last few decades a trend started in extending the association of this into concepts which are systems, but far away from being biological; these are rather human-made organisational structures, business arrangements, or in many cases, simply mere products, where 'ecosystem' is used with more or less veiled marketing (greenwashing) intentions. We can have a discussion about this at deRSE24 or in any other setting, and I'd give you even more reasons against this abuse.

   p.s.: I'm very aware and sorry to jump in the discussion so late.. p.s.: The word has been recognized to be abused already 15 years ago within the environmental sciences: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/on-the-use-and-misuse-of-the-term-ecosystem/A57FCEBC08E64CFC7409FD40F6DA97FE

[jpthiele]

The way I know many people use the terms environment and ecosystem is that environment is the local configuration (think Conda) and ecosystem is all the packages you could install through pip.

There is also the term of 'reproducible computation environment' which means somebody can replicate your setup to reproduce your results.

[jpthiele]

The essay you linked clearly states that environmental sciences should agree on the term and use it correctly.

I found the word metaphorical extension for other uses of the word and I think that fits here as well. And I also don't associate technical ecosystems as greenwashing to be honest.

Different domains use terms differently and that happens and you can't really roll it back. Otherwise we'd never get a news article referring to a big breakthrough as a quantum leap....

[mhagdorn]

The way I know many people use the terms environment and ecosystem is that environment is the local configuration (think Conda) and ecosystem is all the packages you could install through pip.

I think the ecosystem can also include hardware and peripherals.

[mhagdorn]

I think we should keep ecosystem - the Cambridge Dictionary has as after the original, biological definition

"any complicated system consisting of many different people, process, activities, etc., especially relating to technology"

This is exactly where our use fits in.

[annalenalamprecht]

"ecosystem" is a very established term in the software community (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_ecosystem#:~:text=In%20the%20context%20of%20software,technical%20(the%20Ruby%20ecosystem), so I have no bad feelings about keeping the term

[michelemartone]

"ecosystem" is a very established term in the software community (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_ecosystem#:~:text=In%20the%20context%20of%20software,technical%20(the%20Ruby%20ecosystem), so I have no bad feelings about keeping the term

@annalenalamprecht I checked the book by Messerschmitt and Szyperski: that book does not use "ecosystem" in the way it is being intended in this article.

Specifically:

• the occurrence of "ecosystem" alone happens once "ecosystem of complementary as well as competitive suppliers"
• in the preface, it is being used intentionally cautiously: double-quoted and with mention it's a metaphor
• that book uses that word as a non-countable item (like "water is), so never as a multiple, i.e. "ecosystems"
• the term "ecosystem" occurs referring to software once in the title book and as "software ecosystem"

So if "ecosystem" is to be kept in this article without any double quote or specifier adjective, it is with a different, less "cautious" way than that specific book.

[mschwarzmeier]

On the discussion of one or many ecosystems: I think we only use it in singular form, so that would be fine. That having said... Actually on Earth there is one Biosphere, which contains biomes, which contain ecosystems [NG]. One could now try stretching the methaphor, that there may be a python-ecosystem, a c++-ecosystem,... or a ubuntu-ecosystem (or is it a biome?) and that the term we actually would use our "software ecosystem" but the term "software biosphere" would be better suited in our use case... :man_shrugging:

I would like to stick with ecosystem and settle this discussion.
I believe most readers will not think, we believe there is a hearbeat measurable with a stethoscope to programs. (Although, ... looking at e.g. the commit frequency of a repo, I usually deduce if a project might be "dead".)

[michelemartone]

On the discussion of one or many ecosystems: I think we only use it in singular form, so that would be fine. That having said... Actually on Earth there is one Biosphere, which contains biomes, which contain ecosystems [NG]. One could now try stretching the methaphor, that there may be a python-ecosystem, a c++-ecosystem,... or a ubuntu-ecosystem (or is it a biome?) and that the term we actually would use our "software ecosystem" but the term "software biosphere" would be better suited in our use case... 🤷‍♂️

I would like to stick with ecosystem and settle this discussion. I believe most readers will not think, we believe there is a hearbeat measurable with a stethoscope to programs. (Although, ... looking at e.g. the commit frequency of a repo, I usually deduce if a project might be "dead".)

@mschwarzmeier @mhagdorn @MakisH @hvwaldow and others: ok perhaps I won't continue in this round. Though I've this last proposal: what about settling on using "ecosystem" always in double quotes within the article?

[MakisH]

@mschwarzmeier @mhagdorn @MakisH @hvwaldow and others: ok perhaps I won't continue in this round. Though I've this last proposal: what about settling on using "ecosystem" always in double quotes within the article?

I think that quotes should be used wherever there is a verbatim reference (e.g., the Missing Semester, where "computing ecosystem literacy" anyway sounds strange).

Wherever we are using an established term, we should not be using quotes.

Wherever we are inventing terms for easier description, I think we can indeed use quotes.

And I still think we need to look at each case specifically. In some of them, we can just bypass the issue by citing something or refining the term (with the suggestions of this PR as a starting point).

[mschwarzmeier]

yes, @MakisH . I didn't mean to make futile, what has been discussed in the individual code suggestions above.

[CaptainSifff]

@michelemartone Thank You! Do not forget to add you as a contributor!