The author is bloviating. He may be right on a few details, but he misses the point all together.
It doesnt matter how many lines of code there are. Its the basic algorithm that drives the “answer”.
This part he gets right. The problem, as I have stated many times now, is that trending, fitting historical data, whatever you want to call it, does not lead to good prediction. The only way to do that is by having a model of the complete process that has been proven out with real data. There are no good models that have all the details of both viral growth/decay in the real world (vice a lab) AND the infinite impact of human behaviors and interactions. All you can do is postulate.
Well, the number of lines do matter. The original was done in Fortran. The Fortran program was the original model. It’s since been refactored into R, Python, and C++ from what I understand.
After all this refactoring, all the estimates have been changed.
A program written in this manner is almost impossible to change. Using Copy/Paste instead of loops is one issue.
Instead of subroutines just copy paste code.
Programs of this size have almost no structure either. I know for a fact because I deal with them and have been a developer for almost 40 years.
Make a small change and everything goes out the window.
Yes, size does matter.
The author IS bloviating.
As a former programmer who took a lot of pride in good design, I would never talk this way. It is good enough to say, in one sentence, that the code is written poorly and not maintainable. Boom, done.
What matters is how it works, and that is touched on just momentarily. The fact that it cannot produce repeatable results for a given set of inputs is the showstopper. Whatever it’s doing, it cannot be independently validated.
When we look back on this crisis, we’ll learn how certain people found themselves through pure luck to be in the right place at the right moment to drive policy regarding virus mitigation.
This is supposed to be science, with one person checking that another’s theories are sound. Funny how godly voices from a mountaintop can be perceived as science from those that know better.
True, but in the early stages of a novel infection like this it's all you have.
The glaring omission in all of the Imperial criticism I've seen is a reference to a model that was better at the time.
It's mostly been weak post hoc whining.