Reproducibility
On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:08 AM, Michael Hanke <michael.hanke@gmail.com> wrote:
> Debian: The ultimate platform for neuroimaging research
[...]
> However, it is hard to blame the respective developers, because the
> sheer number of existing combinations of operating systems, hardware,
> and library versions makes it almost impossible to verify that a
> particular software is working as intended. Restricting the
> ``supported'' runtime environment is one approach of making
> verification efforts feasible.
Dear list,
This nice abstract inspired me to think about reproducibility of
program runs. If one runs e.g. Debian unstable the OS code which can
potentially affect the results of calculations can change almost
daily. Reproducing results later can be close to impossible unless
versions of all the related libraries etc. are written down somewhere.
Does anyone here have good ideas on how to ensure reproducibility in
the long term? The only thing that comes to my mind is to run all
important calculations in a virtual machine image which is then signed
and stored in case the results need verification. But, maybe there are
other options?
Best,
Teemu
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