Best Practices

This page is intended to exist as a source of truth, compendium, and guide to the scientific computing team's "minimum viable standards". The team works on diverse projects with a wide variety of needs. Maintaining minimum standards contributes to increased levels of group & product cohesion, saves time on unnecessary debates, and puts our values into practice.

Minimum viable standards serve as a the baseline or root of decision-making regarding project implementation. When decision outcomes on a project conflict with these standards, instead of adopting entirely new standards you would adapt these to suit your project requirements. Think of this page as the springboard for justification; by knowing why you must adopt a conflicting standard you are already armed with the tools to more completely document your decision. This page outlines the logic we follow, and gives the context needed to argue alternative methodologies.

The point of having these standards isn't to force you to comply, it's to create the contrast that allows you to make a more informed decision. If you don't have a box to think outside of, it's hard to know where to start. this page serves as the first step to future dialogues and discussions about what works best.