Reproducing software environments: a prerequisite for reproducible research
This addresses the challenge of reproducibility in scientific workflows for researchers, but it is incremental as it focuses on existing tools and methods.
The paper tackles the problem of ensuring reproducible research by highlighting the necessity of redeploying software environments, not just archiving source code, and explores tools and methods to achieve this goal.
As software has become an integral part of scientific workflows, reproducible research practices must take it into account. In what way? Archiving source code is a necessary but insufficient condition. The ability to redeploy software environments, which at first sight may be viewed as a technical detail, is in fact a requirement. This article explores tools and methods to achieve this goal.