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Any tips to help a scientist become a better programmer? (iusearchlinux.fyi)

submitted 8 months ago by mypasswordistaco@iusearchlinux.fyi to c/programming@programming.dev

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Hey there!

I'm a chemical physicist who has been using python (as well as matlab and R) for a lot of different tasks over the last ~10 years, mostly for data analysis but also to automate certain tasks. I am almost completely self-taught, and though I have gotten help and tips from professors throughout the completion of my degrees, I have never really been educated in best practices when it comes to coding.

I have some friends who work as developers but have a similar academic background as I do, and through them I have become painfully aware of how bad my code is. When I write code, it simply needs to do the thing, conventions be damned. I do try to read up on the "right" way to do things, but the holes in my knowledge become pretty apparent pretty quickly.

For example, I have never written a class and I wouldn't know why or where to start (something to do with the init method, right?). I mostly just write functions and scripts that perform the tasks that I need, plus some work with jupyter notebooks from time to time. I only recently got started with git and uploading my projects to github, just as a way to try to teach myself the workflow.

So, I would like to learn to be better. Can anyone recommend good resources for learning programming, but perhaps that are aimed at people who already know a language? It'd be nice to find a guide that assumes you already know more than a beginner. Any help would be appreciated.

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[–] UFODivebomb@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago

My advice comes from being a developer, and tech lead, who has brought a lot of code from scientists to production.

The best path for a company is often: do not use the code the scientist wrote and instead have a different team rewrite the system for production. I've seen plenty of projects fail, hard, because some scientist thought their research code is production level. There is a large gap between research code and production. Anybody who claims otherwise is naive.

This is entirely fine! Even better than attempting to build production quality code from the start. Really! Research is solving a decision problem. That answer is important; less so the code.

However, science is science. Being able to reproduce the results the research produced is essential. So there is the standard requirement of documenting the procedure used (which includes the code!) sufficiently to be reproduced. The best part is the reproduction not only confirms the science but produces a production system at the same time! Awws yea. Science!

I've seen several projects fail when scientists attempt to be production developers without proper training and skills. This is bad for the team, product, and company.

(Tho typically those "scientists" fail to at building reproducible systems. So are they actually scientists? I've encountered plenty of phds in name only. )

So, what are your goals? To build production systems? Then those skills will have to be learned. That likely includes OO. Version control. Structural and behavioral patterns.

Not necessary to learn if that isn't your goal! Just keep in mind that if a resilient production system is the goal, well, research code is like the first pancake in a batch. Verify, taste, but don't serve it to customers.