How do you review code that accompanies a research project or paper? Help rOpenSci plan a Community Call

The irony of working for the govt is that everything we do/produce should be publicly available, but there are heavy restrictions on the tools/software at our disposal. For example, my agency received permission to use GitHub <2 years ago. The result is that not many are yet up to speed on its capabilities, particularly with respect to collaborative coding projects (eg, linking issues and projects in GH). I think many people would benefit from a general overview of the many possible avenues and their pros/cons.

That said, I typically work with 1+ others to review my code, which involves simulated data and verification. I also started writing supplemental markdown docs for nearly everything I do, which usually contain enough of the background/math/stats to understand what I’m trying to accomplish, followed by the code to read, munge, analyze, plot, etc. In addition to the benefits for internal sharing/reviewing, external reviewers/editors of papers also find it enormously helpful when they can replicate your entire process, figures, etc.

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