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Meeting notes 2024-09-26

  • R: go through the Issues
  • R: How do we think a meeting should look like? What do we think are good and bad practices? How to make sure it is effective?
    • R: question 1: do we think these can be improved?
      • R: yes
      • B: yes
    • R: question 2: if yes, how?
      • We like using Issues, although they give some pressure. We agree to try not to feel this pressure.
      • R:
    • specify the goal of our meeting, e.g. 'To make decisions on the course content and practicalities, and have discussion to make these'.
    • only discuss items that are written down in advance,
    • short is better: move complex topics to next week, fun anecdotes are discouraged, chairman should be ruthless - Q: When can we be social? We only meet in formal meetings? - A: When we meet before the meeting and/or afterwards
    • write these rules down and follow them
      • B: I think we need some flexibility with an ending point: Other issues
        • Some issues are better to take directly instead of next meeting
        • We decide if to discuss it it today or it should be postponed
    • R: if there are suggestions, decide next week
  • R: NBIS wants all its courses to use a Short-Term Feedback form. I converted this to markdown and put it at https://github.com/UPPMAX/programming_formalisms/blob/main/docs/misc/evaluation.md. What do we think about this form?
    • R: I think its goal 'to find out how participants have used the skills and knowledge they gained through participating in the NBIS course' is irrelevant and the survey asks way more than just achieving that goal. Due to its vague, irrelevant goal and its many nice-to-have questions, I think it is way too extensive and we should not bother our learners with it. The only questions I'd keep is '7. Would you recommend the course?', '8. What is your overall rating for the course?' and 'Any other comments?'
    • B: If NBIS wants it, can we say no?
      • But sure, most questions can be included in a web form after course.
      • I think all questions should be covered at least somewhere.
  • R: #56 can we convert the slides to website pages (or can they be deleted?) It will make the GitHub repo less messy. I volunteer to do this and/or help with this
    • L: I agree, documents should be written in Git markdown format and converted to webpages in as large extent as possible
    • R: Awesome! Need help?
  • R: #57 what do we think about giving advice (e.g. 'Always (?) do X') without a reference to the literature?
    • B: Is the keyword "Always" here?
      • Can we rephrase and say: "From our experience, this and that work well", and skip references?
    • R: I think most of our advice should be backed up by a reference to the literature, to prevent teaching what we do, but teach what one should do instead
    • L: See comment in the issue [R: copy-pasted it below]. Not forgetting that our own experience is also valuable, but it should be stated when we speak from our own experience and when we follow some other source. Also do not forget about standards as a great reference for literature, such as SS-ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2018

Why is a blog post considered more valuable than our own experience, a blogpost in nothing more than another persons unbacked (drawn from personal experience) opinion. Blogposts have no more merit that our own opinions if we call it evidence based and backed by literature. Gwynet Paltrow has a lot of really influential blog post regarding biochemistry that are utter nonsense and have no evidence or backing in science ofthen contraticting known scientific facts. Same goes for a lot of flatearthers and evolution deniers popularity and influence is not a good measure of content quality on the internet. (Not to say that you cant have great blogposts as a reference just that influence is not a good metric)

  • R: I agree now that blog posts are useless too, thanks
  • R: I disagree that our experience counts: the goal to prevent us making things up and using formal practices as described elsewhere. I would agree stating that things are from own experience when they are is honest. I usually find those arguments completely unconvincing.
  • R: I agree with using a open standard. However, although SS-ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2018 is an ISO standard, it does not prevent us to make up nonsense and point to it. I am open to buy the standards we point to
  • B:
    • Is documentation literature?
    • When?
    • Can we trust the writers?
    • Must everything be peer-reviewed?
    • Shall I try to find references for all statements I do?
    • I'll will fall dead soon...
  • L: We should trust the teachers
  • R: We should not trust the teachers
  • B: Takes time to look for literature
    • R suggests literature?
  • L: Will go through standards again
  • [Decision] increase refs to literature, but do not force to

Next meeting:

  • Discuss evaluation
  • Discuss schedule, especially Monday/Tuesday
  • Discuss other Issues

TODOs:

  • Richel: in Issues, prep next meeting
  • Björn: prep next meeting
  • Lars: in Issues, prep next meeting