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Close Enough for Scientific Work

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  1. Introduce the problem.
  2. Present a simple solution (100-200 lines of code).
  3. Show how to test that code, explaining:
    • what tests have been chosen,
    • why they have been chosen, and
    • how the author decided on the tolerances for those tests.
  4. (Optional) Add a feature, or extend the program in some other way, and show:
    • how the tests are extended to handle the change, and
    • how the testing pays off.
  5. Authors will retain the copyright on their work, but all material must be made available under the Creative Commons - Attribution (CC-BY) license, and all software must be made available under the MIT License. You may use any (widely-used) format and programming language you like—we will employ a professional editor to handle copy editing and production. However, we ask that you don't:

    • explain unit testing, the difference between verification and validation, etc. (we'll do that),
    • explain how floating point works or that it's hard (ditto), or
    • use math that even your close colleagues would have to look up.

    We have used this model to produce several previous books, including:

        

    If you would like to contribute, please either submit a pull request to the repository mail Greg Wilson. And please help spread the word—we think that a couple of dozen worked examples will help most scientists more than any amount of preaching, and between us, we ought to be able to put them together.