Review of cyrus_harrison - *Python's Role in VisIt*

[davclark]

Reviewer: Dav Clark
Department/Center/Division: D-Lab
Institution/University/Company: UC Berkeley
Field of interest / expertise: Computational Social Science / Neuroscience
Country: USA

Article reviewed: Python's Role in VisIt

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?

  Yes

• Does the article present the problem in an appropriate context?
  Specifically, does it:

  • explain why the problem is important,

  No, thought it's somewhat obvious. It would be great to have a clearly
  described explanation of the user models (e.g., Qt UI developer for scientist
  end-user).

  • describe in which situations it arises,

  Yes (-ish). Somewhat implicit, could be more explicit.

  • outline relevant previous work,

  I don't know. Tools that this is built on are well articulated. There are
  other tools even at LBNL that take similar approaches (e.g., KBase), but I
  don't know when these projects were started relevant to this paper being
  written. These other tools wouldn't be replacements (as they are implemented
  in different domains), but would be worth referring to.

  • 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

• Does the paper describe a well-formulated scientific or technical
  achievement?

  Yes, it's clearly an awesome system.

• Are the technical and scientific decisions well-motivated and
  clearly explained?

  No, I'd love to have a bit more about the problem domain and what kinds of
  solutions this system enables.

• Are the code examples (if any) sound, clear, and well-written?

  Yes. Just the right amount of commenting. Maybe add a little whitespace to
  break up sections.

• Is the paper factually correct?

  Yes (I think - haven't run any code, for example)

• Is the language and grammar of sufficient quality?

  Yes.

• Are the conclusions justified?

  Yes, but they could be stronger.

• Is prior work properly and fully cited?

  Yes (but see above on "previous work")

• Should any part of the article be shortened or expanded? Please explain.

  Per above, more on uesrs of the system, and impacts of solutions.

• 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. Fine as is. Could be better.

COMMENTS

The overview.pdf is a bit out of sync with the text, where the CLI is Python.
You may as well make the text parallel the graphic. The details are explained
later in the paper - this just sets up a period of potential confusion.

The approach using Qt designer UIs is definitely in the "moderately awesome"
category. I've seen the basic Qt / Python tech, but I rarely see examples like
this that make it seem really compelling. If you ever want to do a presentation
at UC Berkeley to the python folks, you're most welcome!

[cyrush]

Hi Dav,
Thanks for your review -- I worked to address the reviews with edits included in Pull Request #25
-Cyrus