[pen2l]

With all due respect, that is a stupid reason.

I don't have time to implement every last thing. And I don't require robust code all the time -- it's very understandable for the code to not be robust if it's being provided by a small group with not a lot of funding or resources. Hell, if they make it open source I will contribute to it expecting nothing in return to make it better in any way I can.

I really think that the reason the code isn't shared is journals don't encourage this type of thing (or make it easy). Lab websites live and die, so hosting it there is not a good idea. Very simply, the code should should be packed with the paper somehow. I hope some journal takes the lead soon in creating a system that encourages a bundled presentation of paper + code.

[jmcmahon443]

Academics aren't always concerned with making your job easy, they have lives too. They may have struggled a lot for their results and their code is still a living document, or they sell it to a company. Maybe their grant ran out and they got pulled into something else. Maybe they died.

There's a lot of factors.

Look at OpenRave. It's the result of an academic open sourcing his research.

I just think at the end of the day, a research paper exists to validate human understanding of nature - not give you a boilerplate for implementing it.