mrocklin
commented
10 years ago tl;dr: This is a "I used various libraries to do a hard thing with ease" paper. It's a relatively good one. It's well written, well referenced describes an approachable problem of general interest and executes it well. I recommend that it be accepted into the proceedings.
Reviewer: Matthew Rocklin / @mrocklin
Department/Center/Division:
Institution/University/Company: Continuum Analytics
Field of interest / expertise:
Country: USA
Article reviewed: A Tale of Four Libraries
GENERAL EVALUATION
Please rate the paper using the following criteria (please use the abbreviation to the right of the description)::
below doesn't meet standards for academic publication meets meets or exceeds the standards for academic publication n/a not applicable
- Quality of the approach: meets
- Quality of the writing: meets
- Quality of the figures/tables: meets
SPECIFIC EVALUATION
For the following questions, please respond with 'yes' or 'no'. If you answer 'no', please provide a brief, one- to two-sentence explanation.
- Is the code made publicly available and does the article sufficiently describe how to access it? We aim not to publish papers that essentially advertise proprietary software. Therefore, if the code is not publicly available, please provide a one- to two- sentence response to each of the following questions:
The code does not seem to be available. There is an empty-ish repo.
- Does the article focus on a topic other than the features of the software itself? yes
- Can the majority of statements made be externally validated (i.e., without the use of the software)? yes
- Is the information presented of interest to readers other than those at whom the software is aimed? yes
- Is there any other aspect of the article that would justify including it despite the fact that the code isn't available? it's well written and interesting. It's more of an experiment than a tool
- Does the article discuss the reasons the software is closed?
- Does the article present the problem in an appropriate context?
Specifically, does it:
- explain why the problem is important, yes
- describe in which situations it arises,yes
- outline relevant previous work, yes
- provide background information for non-experts yes
- Is the content of the paper accessible to a computational scientist with no specific knowledge in the given field? yes (at least it was to me)
- Does the paper describe a well-formulated scientific or technical achievement? mostly, it's an "I used these libraries to do something cool" paper. Presumably the actual work has been done before in an academic setting. This shows how the numeric python ecosystem can facilitate this work for more pedestrian users.
- Are the technical and scientific decisions well-motivated and clearly explained? yes
- Are the code examples (if any) sound, clear, and well-written? n/a
- Is the paper factual correct? I found no glaring flaws
- Is the language and grammar of sufficient quality? yes
- Are the conclusions justified? yes
- Is prior work properly and fully cited? The author seemed to do a thorough job, I'm unable to comprehensibly verify this claim though
- Should any part of the article be shortened or expanded? Please explain. no
- In your view, is the paper fit for publication in the conference proceedings? Please suggest specific improvements and indicate whether you think the article needs a significant rewrite (rather than a minor revision). yes
aweinstein
ahmadia
Independent Review Report
Reviewer: Min Ragan-Kelley
Department/Center/Division: Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
Institution/University/Company: UC Berkeley
Field of interest / expertise: IPython
Country: USA
Article reviewed: A Tale of Four Libraries (Alejandro Weinstein)
GENERAL EVALUATION
Please rate the paper using the following criteria (please use the abbreviation to the right of the description):
SPECIFIC EVALUATION
For the following questions, please respond with 'yes' or 'no'. If you answer 'no', please provide a brief, one- to two-sentence explanation.
Is the code made publicly available and does the article sufficiently describe how to access it?
Does the article present the problem in an appropriate context? Specifically, does it:
Is the content of the paper accessible to a computational scientist with no specific knowledge in the given field?
Does the paper describe a well-formulated scientific or technical achievement?
Are the technical and scientific decisions well-motivated and clearly explained?
Are the code examples (if any) sound, clear, and well-written?
Is the paper factually correct?
Is the language and grammar of sufficient quality?
Are the conclusions justified?
Is prior work properly and fully cited?
Should any part of the article be shortened or expanded? Please explain.
In your view, is the paper fit for publication in the conference proceedings? Please suggest specific improvements and indicate whether you think the article needs a significant rewrite (rather than a minor revision).