[PRE REVIEW]: libtrixi: an interface library for using Trixi.jl from C/C++/Fortran

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @sloede (Michael Schlottke-Lakemper)
Repository: https://github.com/trixi-framework/libtrixi
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch): paper-2023-joss
Version: v0.1.4
Editor: Pending
Reviewers: Pending
Managing EiC: Daniel S. Katz

Status

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Software report:

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gitinspector failed to run statistical information for the repository

[editorialbot]

Wordcount for paper.md is 1317

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.21105/jcon.00077 is OK
- 10.1016/j.jcp.2021.110467 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.3996439 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.8321803 is OK
- 10.1137/141000671 is OK
- 10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2 is OK
- 10.1007/978-1-4612-1986-6_8 is OK
- 10.1016/j.camwa.2020.02.022 is OK
- 10.21105/joss.02520 is OK
- 10.21105/joss.04644 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- None

INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[editorialbot]

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[danielskatz]

👋 @sloede - thanks for your submission. I'm going to ask the JOSS editors to examine its suitability for review in JOSS, since as an interface library, it's somewhat a wrapper, which might be out of scope for us. You should hear back in a week or two.

[danielskatz]

@editorialbot query scope

[editorialbot]

Submission flagged for editorial review.

[sloede]

👋 @sloede - thanks for your submission. I'm going to ask the JOSS editors to examine its suitability for review in JOSS, since as an interface library, it's somewhat a wrapper, which might be out of scope for us. You should hear back in a week or two.

Thanks a lot for the heads up, @danielskatz! Please note that we believe that libtrixi is much more than just a library that provides some glue code to allow accessing a tool from another language. As noted also on the "Summary" and "Statement of need" sections, there are expecially two areas where we believe that libtrixi clearly meets the requirement for "substantial scholarly effort":

First, there is the technical challenge of being able to use Julia code from another language in the first place. To the best of our knowledge, there exist no similar efforts yet for making the capabilities of a complex Julia package such as Trixi.jl available via a C/Fortran interface. Questions such has how to pass type information between the languages, how to call arbitrary functions, and how to handle the differences between C and Fortran are among those we need to address.

Second, since the Julia programming language is much more flexible than eg C or Fortran regarding its type system, one cannot simply pass data from a main program to Trixi.jl through a C interface (or vice versa) without losing some information and/or flexibility. One major part of libtrixi is thus the Julia package LibTrixi.jl, which aims to encapsulate some of the type complexity of Julia while retaining as much flexibility as possible.

Some of these efforts have not been described in detail in the JOSS submission due to the word limit, but we would be happy to elaborate here (or elsewhere) if that were helpful to come to a (positive) review decision.

cc @bgeihe @gregorgassner

[sloede]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[editorialbot]

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[sloede]

@danielskatz We propose the following scientists as potential reviewers:

• Samuel Omlin (CSCS/ETHZ, @omlins)
• Ludovic Räss (Uni Lausanne, @luraess)
• Jürgen Fuhrmann (WIAS Berlin, @j-fu)

[danielskatz]

👋 @sloede - I'm sorry to say that after discussion amongst the JOSS editors, we have decided not to review this submission, in part because it does not meet our substantial scholarly effort criterion.

Specific feedback includes

• Seems to be too small and immature. It also has a short development history.
• C/C++/Fortran codes in Julia packages are hosted as precompiled binaries as separate packages. This software can not be installed like many canonical Julia packages.

Please see https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/submitting.html#other-venues-for-reviewing-and-publishing-software-packages for other suggestions for how you might receive credit for your work.

We would also be happy to reconsider a future version of the software that addresses these issues (effort, time, maturity, structure).

[danielskatz]

@editorialbot reject

[editorialbot]

Paper rejected.

[sloede]

@danielskatz Please excuse my long delay in responding!

👋 @sloede - I'm sorry to say that after discussion amongst the JOSS editors, we have decided not to review this submission, in part because it does not meet our substantial scholarly effort criterion.

Specific feedback includes

* Seems to be too small and immature. It also has a short development history.

* C/C++/Fortran codes in Julia packages are hosted as precompiled binaries as separate packages. This software can not be installed like many canonical Julia packages.

Please see https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/submitting.html#other-venues-for-reviewing-and-publishing-software-packages for other suggestions for how you might receive credit for your work.

We would also be happy to reconsider a future version of the software that addresses these issues (effort, time, maturity, structure).

Thank you very much for the specific feedback, that was very helpful. We are confident that we have understood the reasons for the rejection at this stage. We will make sure to address them before considering a resubmission in the future.