diff --git a/org-babel-worg.org b/org-babel-worg.org index 8a34f0438..a28c5d1e2 100644 --- a/org-babel-worg.org +++ b/org-babel-worg.org @@ -262,10 +262,35 @@ b + 4 (org-babel-lob-ingest "path/to/file.org") #+end_src -* Reproducible research - - output vs. value mode - - file & graphical output - - controlling export +* Reproducible Research +#+begin_quote +An article about computational science in a scientific publication is +not the scholarship itself, it is merely advertising of the +scholarship. The actual scholarship is the complete software +development environment and the complete set of instructions which +generated the figures. +#+end_quote +-- D. Donoho + +[[http://reproducibleresearch.net/index.php/Main_Page][Reproducible Research]] (RR) is the practice of distributing the data +and functions referenced in a paper into the paper itself, so that +each copy of the paper is not only a document describing the research, +but is also an executable reproducing the research. + +Org-mode already has exceptional support for [[http://orgmode.org/manual/Exporting.html#Exporting][exporting to html and +LaTeX]]. Org-babel makes Org-mode a tool for RR by *activating* the +data and source code embedded into Org-mode documents making the +entire document executable. This makes it not only possible, but +natural to distribute research in a format that encourages readers to +recreate your results, and perform their own analysis. + +Existing RR tools like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweave][Sweave]] provide for the embedding of [[http://www.r-project.org/][R]] code into +LaTeX documents. While this is very useful, such documents often +still require a large degree of "glue" in the form of external shell +scripts, python code, and Makefiles. To my knowledge Org-babl is the +only RR tool which allows multiple languages and data to coexist and +cooperate inside of a single document. + * Literate programming - org-babel-tangle - org-babel-load-file