Re: Robustness Check

[Marcus G. Daniels]

>>>>> "B" == Benedikt Stefansson <address@hidden> writes:

B> Sometimes it is just easiest to go the hardcode way

Don't go the hardcode way unless you're comfortable scrutinizing code.
If you don't read your code and treat with the kind of respect you
give your papers, you will have code worthy only of disposal.

There's nothing wrong with throwaway code, of course, but decide what
mode of behavior you want given your circumstances.  What you *don't*
want to do is have inadequate mental energy for maintaining a growing
body of ad-hoc analysis solutions within your simulations, and have
them give you flakey output.  

For example, data files that have to conform to some layout in order
to be *read* by a statistical package at least provide a *minimal*
sanity check.  If the simulation does much of the analysis work, and
you put no serious effort into writing internal sanity checks within the
simulation, then result will probably be less reliable than dumping out
files and looking at the files with another program.

Also, don't trust prototype software like ExperimentSwarm.  Don't even
think about using such code unless you are prepared to start reading,
contemplating, and modifying that code.

Basically, unless you are prepared to invest and become skilled to
some extent, don't go in any unfamiliar direction -- that will
increase the probability of mistakes.  (But keep in mind that there is
a probability of error with manual labor, too.)

When you don't have time to learn about your tools, choose very simple
ones you can use in obvious, correct ways.  Awk is such a tool.



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