Principles
Despite the increasingly computational nature of scientific research, most computer code and software written by scientists is never published, arguably to the detriment of the scientific process (Barnes 2010, Ince et al 2012). Publishing our code helps (a) our peers to review and reproduce our work, (b) students to learn best practices for scientific analysis and software development, and (c) non-specialists, such as conservation practitioners and policy makers, to ability apply our ideas to real-world problems.
In my own computational work, I make an effort to produce both low-level scientific packages that can support basic research as well as high-level interfaces that make existing knowledge available for use by broader audiences.
Much of the computer code that I have written for my own research will soon be hosted in public repositories on Github and made available to the community under open source licenses.
Current Projects
- macroeco – A comprehensive python package for testing the predictions of macroecological theories against data, including a GUI specifically targeted to helping practitioners apply theory to conservation problem
- batid – A Python package (with a simple GUI for non-programmers) for the automated identification of western North American bat species from bat calls recorded in zero-crossing format
- ipyqtmacvim – A Vim plugin for Mac OS X that integrates MacVim with the IPython Qt console
(Projects without links above are still in development, and will be available soon.)