[PRE REVIEW]: Pynamical: Model and visualize discrete nonlinear dynamical systems, chaos, and fractals

[whedon]

Submitting author: @gboeing (Geoff Boeing) Repository: https://github.com/gboeing/pynamical Version: v0.1.1 Editor: Pending Reviewer: Pending

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[labarba]

Thank for your submission, @gboeing. That certainly looks cool, and it seems like a neat package for teaching Nonlinear Dynamics. But can you clarify whether the software has a research application? The examples shown are textbook systems—they look great, though! (And I do not find a statement of need.)

[gboeing]

@labarba thanks so much for the quick feedback. I've updated the paper per your suggestions, to clarify its research applications and state the need/gap it fills.

[gboeing]

@labarba please let me know if there's anything else you need from me to begin the review

[labarba]

As far as I can see, this package is not a research tool. It may be useful for teaching a beginner course in dynamical systems at the undergraduate level. Even there, the author has pretty much given all the examples of interest. Historically, these systems played a role in calling people’s attention to dynamical systems, but there are no applications in the modern literature where one-dimentional discrete systems have research significance. This type of model is simply not used in present-day research. Can the tool compute two- or three-dimensional discrete-time systems? Is it limited to autonomous, or can it do non-autonomous systems? If so, provide examples. The author does not make the case that the tool can be applied to contemporary applications that use dynamical modeling.

[arfon]

👋 @gboeing - do you have any thoughts based on @labarba's comment?

[gboeing]

Hi @arfon, I will defer to the editors' judgment on topics of publishability.

[labarba]

@gboeing We are launching a new journal which you might consider moving your submission to (submissions will open in a few weeks): https://github.com/openjournals/jose

[gboeing]

@labarba thanks. I'll keep my eye on it for when submissions open.

[kyleniemeyer]

I agree this looks like a great candidate for JOSE, as it seems like a tool more useful to explain/explore dynamical systems from an educational perspective rather than being a reusable research tool—unless there are research use cases we are missing.

@gboeing If you agree, would you be ok with withdrawing this submission for now, and resubmitting to JOSE as soon as we open that up? (or leave this open until then, but we can tag as "paused" or "withdrawn")

[gboeing]

@kyleniemeyer sure we can withdraw this here then. When is JOSE estimated to open up?

[labarba]

We hope JOSE can start receiving submissions in maybe about a month or so ... currently, we're stuck on the need to make some changes to the submission web form, but we don't have a Ruby programmer who can contribute that right now.

[gboeing]

Hi @labarba just checking back on this. Is there an update on when JOSE will start receiving submissions?

[labarba]

We're getting increasing number of enquiries about the launch of JOSE! As you can see in this issue, we are close to having the infrastructure changes in JOSS to be re-usable for JOSE. (A couple more weeks?)

[arfon]

Closing this as this submission isn't being considered for JOSS but feel free to keep checking back on JOSE updates @gboeing :-)