[madmax96]

I am unable to reproduce work in CS most of the time. In part, because technology moves so fast. You can’t earn a PhD or tenure by maintaining open source software, so after a few years most implementations are rotten. Research software rots faster than other software because it’s built by people who aren’t professional engineers. Code quality doesn’t earn PhDs or tenure, either. We also use expensive new technologies with changing interfaces. So research software almost always rots.

Also in part because papers are “dressed up.” That’s a polite way of saying that the description of what they’ve built has been stretched. Authors need to make reviewers excited. They do this with ideas, not code. The purpose of their code is to show that the ideas could be practical, not that they are. So research software is almost always incomplete.

[amelius]

What do you suggest? PhD-students answering support calls?

[ShamelessC]

All PhD's should be required to spend one year building production software at a company, and should be subjected to weekly code reviews.

Mostly kidding.