[REVIEW]: PyPVRPM: Photovoltaic Reliability and Performance Model in Python

[whedon]

Submitting author: @brandons209 (Brandon Silva)
Repository: https://github.com/FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch):
Version: 1.7.4
Editor: @jgostick
Reviewers: @blthayer, @SarthakJariwala
Archive: 10.5281/zenodo.6355115

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Status

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HTML: <a href="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/359bb7f809f245df315e45d3e7bb9213"><img src="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/359bb7f809f245df315e45d3e7bb9213/status.svg"></a>
Markdown: [![status](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/359bb7f809f245df315e45d3e7bb9213/status.svg)](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/359bb7f809f245df315e45d3e7bb9213)

Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@SarthakJariwala, please carry out your review in this issue by updating the checklist below. If you cannot edit the checklist please:

1. Make sure you're logged in to your GitHub account
2. Be sure to accept the invite at this URL: https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/invitations

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @jgostick know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Review checklist for @SarthakJariwala

✨ Important: Please do not use the Convert to issue functionality when working through this checklist, instead, please open any new issues associated with your review in the software repository associated with the submission. ✨

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the repository url?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@brandons209) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support #4213

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of Need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

Review checklist for @blthayer

✨ Important: Please do not use the Convert to issue functionality when working through this checklist, instead, please open any new issues associated with your review in the software repository associated with the submission. ✨

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the repository url?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@brandons209) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of Need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[whedon]

Hello human, I'm @whedon, a robot that can help you with some common editorial tasks. @SarthakJariwala it looks like you're currently assigned to review this paper 🎉.

⚠️ JOSS reduced service mode ⚠️

Due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, JOSS is currently operating in a "reduced service mode". You can read more about what that means in our blog post.

⭐ Important ⭐

If you haven't already, you should seriously consider unsubscribing from GitHub notifications for this (https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews) repository. As a reviewer, you're probably currently watching this repository which means for GitHub's default behaviour you will receive notifications (emails) for all reviews 😿

To fix this do the following two things:

1. Set yourself as 'Not watching' https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews:

2. You may also like to change your default settings for this watching repositories in your GitHub profile here: https://github.com/settings/notifications

For a list of things I can do to help you, just type:

@whedon commands

For example, to regenerate the paper pdf after making changes in the paper's md or bib files, type:

@whedon generate pdf

[whedon]

Wordcount for paper.md is 728

[whedon]

Software report (experimental):

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.88  T=0.22 s (384.1 files/s, 165021.5 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JavaScript                      14           2405           2473           9211
HTML                            24           3699             72           8933
SVG                              1              0              0           2671
Python                          16            746            840           2645
CSS                              4            191             35            757
YAML                             6            113            116            683
JSON                             5              0              0            496
reStructuredText                11            179            312            180
TeX                              1              7              0             65
Markdown                         2             17              0             43
DOS Batch                        1              8              1             26
make                             1              4              7              9
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            86           7369           3856          25719
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Statistical information for the repository '318eb3e546f0763db97f5a72' was
gathered on 2022/01/22.
The following historical commit information, by author, was found:

Author                     Commits    Insertions      Deletions    % of changes
Brandon                         25          2729           1089           17.80
Brandon Silva                    9         15281            152           71.95
brandons209                     15          1876            324           10.26

Below are the number of rows from each author that have survived and are still
intact in the current revision:

Author                     Rows      Stability          Age       % in comments
Brandon                   18320          671.3          2.9               16.18

[whedon]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.2172/1088066 is OK
- 10.2172/1367461 is OK
- 10.1109/PVSC.2018.8547454 is OK
- 10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366397 is OK
- 10.2172/1761998 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- None

INVALID DOIs

- None

[whedon]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[jgostick]

@whedon add @blthayer as reviewer

[whedon]

OK, @blthayer is now a reviewer

[jgostick]

Hi @blthayer and @SarthakJariwala. Thank you for being a reviewer for JOSS. At the top of this thread you will see a checklist for you to use as a guideline for your review. At JOSS we generally work with the authors to help them get their submission into publishable form (if it is not already), so you can interact with them here or on their repo regarding any changes you think are needed. Remember that the review is publish and non-anonymous, so is meant to be a collaborative effort, and your github handles will appear on the final PDF as reviewers, so you'll get credit for your efforts.

Let's aim to have this done in a about 1 month? So Feb 28th?

[blthayer]

FYI (@brandons209, @jgostick): At this point I plan to start my review in earnest either this weekend or next week. Looking forward to checking out PyPVRPM!

[brandons209]

@blthayer Great! If you need any help or want some example cases for testing let me know.

[whedon]

👋 @SarthakJariwala, please update us on how your review is going (this is an automated reminder).

[blthayer]

@jgostick - it looks like I need a fresh invitation sent in order to be able to edit my checklist. When I went to the following URL, it said the invitation was expired: https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/invitations

This isn't (yet) blocking me from performing my review.

Thanks!

[blthayer]

I'll use this comment to maintain a checklist of the issues which I've filed over in the author's repository.

• DOC - Complete "SAM/PVRPM Assumptions / Limitations" documentation FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#27
• DOC - "Getting Started" section should link to SAM FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#28
• DOC - "Installation" before "Getting Started?" FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#29
• DOC - SAM version FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#30
• DOC - Module Order FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#31
• DOC - Link to sample YAML up front FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#32
• (OPTIONAL) DOC - General formatting suggestion FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#33
• DOC - typo FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#34
• (OPTIONAL) DOC - decay nitpick FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#35
• BUG (maybe) - Error loading and verifying case FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#36
• DOC - List or link to financial models that support lifetime losses FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#38
• DOC - SAM only exports 1 .json file FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#39
• Division by Zero FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#42
• "No tracking modules loaded by tracker..." FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#43
• Example configuration file doesn't work "out of the box" FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#44
• Integer number of inverters per transformer FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#45
• (OPTIONAL) (Optional): Threads convention FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#46
• Suspicious results FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#47
• FutureWarning from pandas FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#48
• [FEATURE] y-axis label for LCOE Box Plot FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#58
• (OPTIONAL) [FEATURE] (OPTIONAL) Default Branch Name FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#59
• [DOCs] JOSS Paper Feedback FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#60

[blthayer]

My review is currently blocked by FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#36, @brandons209

[jgostick]

@whedon assign @blthayer as reviewer

[editorialbot]

Attempting dry run of processing paper acceptance...

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.2172/1088066 is OK
- 10.2172/1367461 is OK
- 10.1109/PVSC.2018.8547454 is OK
- 10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366397 is OK
- 10.2172/1761998 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- None

INVALID DOIs

- None

[jgostick]

@brandons209 Congrats. An editor in chief will be notified that the submission is ready to go, and will make it official shortly.

[editorialbot]

👋 @openjournals/joss-eics, this paper is ready to be accepted and published.

Check final proof 👉 openjournals/joss-papers#3055

If the paper PDF and the deposit XML files look good in openjournals/joss-papers#3055, then you can now move forward with accepting the submission by compiling again with the command @editorialbot accept

[kthyng]

@jgostick Is there a reason one checkbox is unchecked?

@brandons209 Please edit the metadata in your Zenodo archive so that the title and author list match your JOSS paper. Also it looks like the version listed here and in the Zenodo archive are not the same, so please rectify that and let me know what version you want here.

[brandons209]

@kthyng Alright, all the information should be updated on Zenodo. Version 1.7.4 is correct.

[kthyng]

@brandons209 Your software title is "PyPVRPM: Photovoltaic Reliability and Performance Model in Python" right? I'm looking for that to be the Zenodo archive title here, unless you prefer not to have that: https://zenodo.org/record/6355115

[brandons209]

@kthyng That's correct. I didn't realize the archive had to match the paper exactly. I'll change it.

[danielskatz]

@brandons209 - I'll proofread the paper now (as the AEiC on duty this week).

[danielskatz]

👋 @jgostick & @SarthakJariwala - I see one checkbox (functionality) unchecked. Can you discuss why this is the case?

[danielskatz]

@brandons209 - I'm suggesting some small language changes in FSEC-Photovoltaics/pvrpm-lcoe#61 - please merge this or let me know what you disagree with. Once we do this, and get the last checkbox issue resolved, we can move to final acceptance and publication

[jgostick]

HI @danielskatz
We discussed this above. One reviewer had success but the other had trouble installing it on his Mac. I didn't think lack of cross-platform compatibility was a problem, and @SarthakJariwala did a very thorough review otherwise, so figured it'd be ok to let that checkbox slip.

[danielskatz]

@jgostick - thanks - I missed that earlier discussion.

[brandons209]

@danielskatz Looks good, I merged the PR.

[danielskatz]

@editorialbot recommend-accept

[editorialbot]

Attempting dry run of processing paper acceptance...

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.2172/1088066 is OK
- 10.2172/1367461 is OK
- 10.1109/PVSC.2018.8547454 is OK
- 10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366397 is OK
- 10.2172/1761998 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- None

INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

👋 @openjournals/joss-eics, this paper is ready to be accepted and published.

Check final proof 👉 openjournals/joss-papers#3079

If the paper PDF and the deposit XML files look good in openjournals/joss-papers#3079, then you can now move forward with accepting the submission by compiling again with the command @editorialbot accept

[danielskatz]

@editorialbot accept

[editorialbot]

Doing it live! Attempting automated processing of paper acceptance...

[editorialbot]

🐦🐦🐦 👉 Tweet for this paper 👈 🐦🐦🐦

[editorialbot]

🚨🚨🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL, YOU HAVE JUST ACCEPTED A PAPER INTO JOSS! 🚨🚨🚨

Here's what you must now do:

0. Check final PDF and Crossref metadata that was deposited 👉 Creating pull request for 10.21105.joss.04093 joss-papers#3080
1. Wait a couple of minutes, then verify that the paper DOI resolves https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04093
2. If everything looks good, then close this review issue.
3. Party like you just published a paper! 🎉🌈🦄💃👻🤘

Any issues? Notify your editorial technical team...

[danielskatz]

Congratulations to @brandons209 and co-authors!!

And thanks to @blthayer and @SarthakJariwala for reviewing, and @jgostick for editing!
We couldn't do this without you

[editorialbot]

🎉🎉🎉 Congratulations on your paper acceptance! 🎉🎉🎉

If you would like to include a link to your paper from your README use the following code snippets:

Markdown:
[![DOI](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.04093/status.svg)](https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04093)

HTML:
<a style="border-width:0" href="https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04093">
  <img src="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.04093/status.svg" alt="DOI badge" >
</a>

reStructuredText:
.. image:: https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.04093/status.svg
   :target: https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04093

This is how it will look in your documentation:

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