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    What you say actually speaks against the publishing of code, since it's likely to become obsolete or to face portability issues. In my opinion, what matters is the theory behind the implementation and I don't think research funding should go into developing robust, platform-independent, frequently updated software products. That's the software industry's job.
    – Cape Code
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 15:44
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    I don't fully agree with that. The reason we publish papers is so that other researchers take up our ideas and run with them. A good way of making sure that happens is by making sure that the tools required are available. Thus there is often a good reason to provide tools that are adequate for that purpose, but that still has a cost that is not currently met. We don't need to produce production quality code, but we do need funding to produce code of adequate quality (from the perspective of portability and reasonable longevity).
    – Dikran Marsupial
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 15:48
  • @DikranMarsupial: "so that other researchers take up our ideas and run with them" - that sounds very easy, as if it were enough to publish one's code and that would directly allow other researchers to build on top of it. However, that is linked to many ifs in reality - it only works if the other researchers know the technologies used for the code, if anything else they want to combine with that code is compatible, if the code runs at all on their platform, etc.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Feb 28, 2015 at 23:53
  • @O.R.Mapper you are missing the point, if you provide code it is easier for others to build on your work. How much easier depends on a number of factors, but if you read my answer then you will find I had raised those same points already! I also did not say that it was enough to publish the code - it isn't, the code supports the publication, nothing more. The more you can do to alleviate the "if"s, the better, but at the end of the day you are working to a time & effort budget, so there will always be "if"s left, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give away research code.
    – Dikran Marsupial
    Commented Mar 2, 2015 at 8:12
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    The code does NOT need to meet any code quality standards. As long as the code produces the results as promised by the paper. Let software engineers optimize or rewrite the code.
    – Sam Stoelinga
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 5:59