[Python-Dev] Official citation for Python

[Jacqueline Kazil]

The PSF has received a few inquiries asking the question — “How do I cite
Python?”So, I am reaching out to you all to figure this out.

(For those that don’t know my background, I have been in academia for a bit
as a Ph.D student and have worked at the Library of Congress writing code
to process Marc records , among
other things.)

IMHO the citation for Python should be decided upon by the Python
developers and should live somewhere on the site.

Two questions to be answered…

   1. What format should it take?
   2. Where does it live on the site?

To help frame the first one, I quickly wrote this up —
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R0mo8EYVIPNkmNBImpcZTbk0e78T2oU71ioX5NvVTvY/edit#

tldr; Summary of possibilities…

   1. Article for one citation (1 DOI, generated by the publication)
   2. No article (many DOIs — one for each major version through Zenodo
    (or similar service))

Discuss.

-Jackie

Jackie Kazil
Board of Directors, PSF
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Re: [Python-Dev] Official citation for Python

[Jacqueline Kazil]

Terry -- For clarification, the format question was not a style question.
It was a reference to the one versus many that I wrote in the explainer.
Yes... there are many prescribed formats already. That is the easy part.

-Jackie

On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 11:33 PM Terry Reedy  wrote:

> On 9/9/2018 3:43 PM, Jacqueline Kazil wrote:
> > The PSF has received a few inquiries asking the question —
> > “How do I cite Python?”So, I am reaching out to you all to figure this
> out.
> >
> > (For those that don’t know my background, I have been in academia for a
> > bit as a Ph.D student and have worked at the Library of Congress writing
> > code to process Marc records <https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/>,
> > among other things.)
> >
> > IMHO the citation for Python should be decided upon by the Python
> > developers and should live somewhere on the site.
> >
> > Two questions to be answered…
> >
> >  1. What format should it take?
>
> There are by now formats for citing web documents.  I presume style
> guides now include such.  Try a current version of the Chicago Manual of
> Style.  (not sure of exact title).  I will ask a university professor
> who should know more than I.
>
> >  2. Where does it live on the site?
>
> On https://bugs.python.org/issue26597, I suggested the Copyright page.
> I now think a link to 'Citing these Documents' on
> https://docs.python.org/3/
> would be even better.
>
> --
> Terry Jan Reedy
>
>
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Re: [Python-Dev] Official citation for Python

[Jacqueline Kazil]

into good behavior, not
>>> ostracize them).
>>>
>>> The second is the Python *language and standard library*.  Then the
>>> Language Reference and/or the Library Reference should be cited
>>> briefly when Python is first mentioned, and in the text introducing a
>>> program or program fragment, with a full citation in the bibliography.
>>> I tentatively suggest that the metadata for the Language Reference
>>> would be
>>>
>>> Author: principal author(s) (Guido?) et al. OR python.org OR
>>> Python Contributors
>>> Title: The Python Language Reference
>>> Version: to match Python version used (if relevant, different
>>> versions each get full citations), probably should not be
>>> "current"
>>> Publisher: Python Software Foundation
>>> Date: of the relevant version
>>> Location: City of legal address of PSF
>>> URL: to version used (probably should not be the default)
>>> Date accessed: if "current" was used
>>>
>>> The Library reference would be the same except for Title.
>>>
>>> The third is a *particular implementation*.  In that case the metadata
>>> would be
>>>
>>> Author: principal author(s) (Guido) et al. OR python.org OR
>>> Python Contributors
>>> Title: The cPython Python distribution
>>> Python Version: as appropriate (if relevant, different versions each
>>> get full citations), never "current"
>>> Distributor Version: if different from Python version (eg, additional
>>> Debian cruft)
>>> Publisher: Distributor (eg, PSF, Debian Project, Anaconda Inc.)
>>> Date: of the relevant version
>>> Location: City of legal address of distributor
>>>
>>> If downloaded:
>>>
>>> URL: to version used (including git commit SHA1 if available)
>>> Date accessed: download from distributor, not installation date
>>>
>>> If received on physical medium: use the "usual" form of citation for a
>>> collection of individual works (even if Python was the only thing on
>>> it).  Probably the only additional information needed would be the
>>> distributor as editor of the collection and the name of the
>>> collection.
>>>
>>> In most cases I can think of, if the implementation is cited, the
>>> Language and Library References should be cited, too.
>>>
>>> Finally, if Python or components were modified for the project, the
>>> modified version should be preserved in a repository and a VCS
>>> identifier provided.  This does not imply the repository need be
>>> publicly accessible, of course, although it might be for other reasons
>>> (eg, in a GSoC project,wherever or if hosted for free on GitHub).
>>>
>>> I doubt that "URNs" like DOI and ISBN are applicable, but if available
>>> they should be included in all cases as well.
>>>
>>> Steve
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Re: [Python-Dev] Official citation for Python

[Jacqueline Kazil]

RE: Why cite Python….

I would say that in this paper —
http://conference.scipy.org/proceedings/scipy2015/pdfs/jacqueline_kazil.pdf,
where we introduced a new library, we should have cited Python, because the
library was based in Python. We were riding on the coattails of Python and
if Python did not exist, then this library would not exist.

(taking this a level higher)
Just as someone doing research (a specific application) should cite the
Mesa library. Without the good and bad that is Mesa, their research would
have taken a different form.

Since my Ph.D is on Mesa, I will be citing Python there.

I think for more insight we can look at who has cited some of Guido’s stuff…
For example:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=900267235435084077&as_sdt=20005&sciodt=0,9&hl=en

Does that help?
RE: Just like R - Versions

@Stephen
Are you suggesting major versions or minor versions?
RE: Guido’s prio works

Some of those have weight already. Should we be picking one those and
pointing people to that?
Final decision

I am going to the NumFocus summit for maintainers of Science Python
libraries next week. I believe that the Science Python community is where
the main audience for this is… correct me if you think this is a wrong
assumption.

I thought I could take two to three concrete formats and user test there
and report on how community members who would be using the citation feel.

Good idea? Bad idea?

On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 4:35 AM Stephen J. Turnbull <
turnbull.stephen...@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:

> Jacqueline Kazil writes:
>
>  > *As a user, I am writing an academic paper and I need to cite Python. *
>
> I don't understand the meaning of "need" and "Python".  To understand
> your code, one likely needs the Language Reference and surely the
> Library Reference, and probably documentation of the APIs and
> semantics of various third party code.
>
> To just give credit to the Python project for the suite of tools
> you've used, a citation like the R Project's should do (I think this
> has appeared more than once, I copy it from José María Mateos's
> parallel post):
>
>  > To cite R in publications use:
>
>  >   R Core Team (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical
>  >   computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
>  >   URL https://www.R-project.org/.
>
> I guess for Python that would be something like
>
> """
> Python Core Developers [2018].  Python: A general purpose language for
> computing, with batteries included.  Python Software Foundation,
> Beaverton, OR.  https://www.python.org/.
> """
>
> I like R's citation() builtin.
>
> One caveat: I get the impression that the R Project is far more
> centralized than Python is, that there are not huge independent
> projects like SciPy and NumPy and Twisted and so on, nor independent
> implementations of the core language like PyPy and Jython.  So I
> suspect that for most serious scientific computing you would need to
> cite one or more third-pary projects as well, and perhaps an
> implementation such as PyPy or Jython.
>
> Jacqueline again:
>
>  > Let's throw reproducibility out the window for now (<--- something
>  > I never thought I would say), because that should be captured in
>  > the code, not in the citations.
>  >
>  > So, if we don't need the specific version of Python, then maybe
>  > creating one citation is all we need.
>
> Do you realize that `3 / 2` means different computations depending on
> the version of Python?  And that `"a string"` produces different
> objects with different duck-types depending on the version?
>
> As far as handling versions, this would do, I think:
>
> f"""
> Python Core Developers [{release_year}].  Python: A general purpose
> language for computing, with batteries included, version
> {version_number}.  Python Software Foundation, Beaverton, OR.
> Project URL: https://www.python.org/.
> """
>


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Re: [Python-Dev] Official citation for Python

[Jacqueline Kazil]

Cool, thanks!

On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 7:19 PM Brett Cannon  wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 15:23 Jacqueline Kazil 
> wrote:
>
>> RE: Why cite Python….
>>
>> I would say that in this paper —
>> http://conference.scipy.org/proceedings/scipy2015/pdfs/jacqueline_kazil.pdf,
>> where we introduced a new library, we should have cited Python, because the
>> library was based in Python. We were riding on the coattails of Python and
>> if Python did not exist, then this library would not exist.
>>
>> (taking this a level higher)
>> Just as someone doing research (a specific application) should cite the
>> Mesa library. Without the good and bad that is Mesa, their research would
>> have taken a different form.
>>
>> Since my Ph.D is on Mesa, I will be citing Python there.
>>
>> I think for more insight we can look at who has cited some of Guido’s
>> stuff…
>> For example:
>> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=900267235435084077&as_sdt=20005&sciodt=0,9&hl=en
>>
>> Does that help?
>> RE: Just like R - Versions
>>
>> @Stephen
>> Are you suggesting major versions or minor versions?
>> RE: Guido’s prio works
>>
>> Some of those have weight already. Should we be picking one those and
>> pointing people to that?
>> Final decision
>>
>> I am going to the NumFocus summit for maintainers of Science Python
>> libraries next week. I believe that the Science Python community is where
>> the main audience for this is… correct me if you think this is a wrong
>> assumption.
>>
>> I thought I could take two to three concrete formats and user test there
>> and report on how community members who would be using the citation feel.
>>
>> Good idea? Bad idea?
>>
> I think seeing how some other academics other than the ones here
> definitely wouldn't hurt.
>
> -Brett
>
>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 4:35 AM Stephen J. Turnbull <
>> turnbull.stephen...@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:
>>
>>> Jacqueline Kazil writes:
>>>
>>>  > *As a user, I am writing an academic paper and I need to cite Python.
>>> *
>>>
>>> I don't understand the meaning of "need" and "Python".  To understand
>>> your code, one likely needs the Language Reference and surely the
>>> Library Reference, and probably documentation of the APIs and
>>> semantics of various third party code.
>>>
>>> To just give credit to the Python project for the suite of tools
>>> you've used, a citation like the R Project's should do (I think this
>>> has appeared more than once, I copy it from José María Mateos's
>>> parallel post):
>>>
>>>  > To cite R in publications use:
>>>
>>>  >   R Core Team (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical
>>>  >   computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
>>>  >   URL https://www.R-project.org/.
>>>
>>> I guess for Python that would be something like
>>>
>>> """
>>> Python Core Developers [2018].  Python: A general purpose language for
>>> computing, with batteries included.  Python Software Foundation,
>>> Beaverton, OR.  https://www.python.org/.
>>> """
>>>
>>> I like R's citation() builtin.
>>>
>>> One caveat: I get the impression that the R Project is far more
>>> centralized than Python is, that there are not huge independent
>>> projects like SciPy and NumPy and Twisted and so on, nor independent
>>> implementations of the core language like PyPy and Jython.  So I
>>> suspect that for most serious scientific computing you would need to
>>> cite one or more third-pary projects as well, and perhaps an
>>> implementation such as PyPy or Jython.
>>>
>>> Jacqueline again:
>>>
>>>  > Let's throw reproducibility out the window for now (<--- something
>>>  > I never thought I would say), because that should be captured in
>>>  > the code, not in the citations.
>>>  >
>>>  > So, if we don't need the specific version of Python, then maybe
>>>  > creating one citation is all we need.
>>>
>>> Do you realize that `3 / 2` means different computations depending on
>>> the version of Python?  And that `"a string"` produces different
>>> objects with different duck-types depending on the version?
>>>
>>> As far as handling versions, this would do, I think:
>>>
>>> f"""
>>> Python Core Developers [{release_year}].  Python: A general purpose
>>> language for computing, with batteries included, version
>>> {version_number}.  Python Software Foundation, Beaverton, OR.
>>> Project URL: https://www.python.org/.
>>> """
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jacqueline Kazil | @jackiekazil
>>
>>
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Re: [Python-Dev] Official citation for Python

[Jacqueline Kazil]

I wanted to send an update.
At the NumFocus Summit, I found out about...
This: https://www.force11.org/group/software-citation-working-group
& this: https://github.com/adrn/CitationPEP

I am going to work on a citation approach based off of those two sources
and come back with a more developed proposal.

-Jackie

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 1:12 PM MRAB  wrote:

> On 2018-09-17 05:05, Jeremy Hylton wrote:
> >
> > I wanted to start with an easy answer that is surely unsatisfying:
> >
> http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/01/how-to-cite-software-in-apa-style.html
> >
> > APA style is pretty popular, and it says that standard software doesn't
> > need to be specified. Standard software includes "Microsoft Word, Java,
> > and Adobe Photoshop." So I'd say Python fits well in that category, and
> > doesn't need to be cited.
> >
> > I said you wouldn't be satisfied...
> >
> It goes on to say """Note: We don’t keep a comprehensive list of what
> programs are “standard.” You make the call.""".
>
> [snip]
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[Python-Dev] Re: The Python 2 death march

[Jacqueline Kazil]

*RE: Ned's comments -- *That is the same reaction I had when I read through
this thread.

*RE: Tal's comment - *I could see this making sense as an explanation.

*RE: Guido's comment*
This makes me think that April 2020 is not a thing. And if Ben is
supporting solo, then can people email him directly with issues? 😂😂😂

*On a serious note...*
I would like clarification, so we (dev community and PSF) have a shared
understanding of the direction and are sending the same messaging.

-Jackie
PSF Board of Directors

On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 4:20 PM Tal Einat  wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 10:03 PM Ned Batchelder 
> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not looking forward to answering questions from the public about why
> > the PSF is writing dire and specific warnings like "We have decided that
> > January 1, 2020, will be the day that we sunset Python 2," while the
> > core devs are planning a release four months after that.  It won't help
> > Python's credibility, and may convince some people that they don't have
> > to take the date seriously..
>
> To me it seems pretty clear: On Jan 1st 2020, the 2.7.x branch will no
> longer receive fixes for any *new* bugs or security issues, nor other
> improvements. I would expect that be the time of the code freeze for
> the first release candidate, not the time of the final release. While
> we will still fix issues *introduced in 2.7.18 since 2.7.17* before
> the final 2.7.18 release, we won't address any other bugs or security
> issues and won't backport anything *new* from 3.x. (I may have some
> details not exactly correct here, but I hope the gist is correct.)
>
> I'm sure the wording could be improved, but generally this seems
> entirely reasonable to me.
>
> - Tal Einat
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