[REVIEW]: DBMS-Benchmarker: Benchmark and Evaluate DBMS in Python

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @perdelt (Patrick Erdelt) Repository: https://github.com/Beuth-Erdelt/DBMS-Benchmarker Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch): Version: v0.11.22 Editor: @gkthiruvathukal Reviewers: @simon-lewis, @erik-whiting Archive: Pending

Status

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Markdown: [![status](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/82d2fa62b5c3ec30014f6307cc731cdd/status.svg)](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/82d2fa62b5c3ec30014f6307cc731cdd)

Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@simon-lewis & @erik-whiting, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review. First of all you need to run this command in a separate comment to create the checklist:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @gkthiruvathukal know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @erik-whiting

📝 Checklist for @simon-lewis

[editorialbot]

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[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.88  T=0.32 s (192.1 files/s, 242660.8 lines/s)
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Language                     files          blank        comment           code
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HTML                             8           3014              2          32242
Python                          23           1955           3993          10434
Markdown                        14            601              0           2213
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SUM:                            61           5627          25677          45742
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gitinspector failed to run statistical information for the repository

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.1007/978-3-030-84924-5_6 is OK
- 10.1007/978-3-030-94437-7_6 is OK
- 10.1007/978-3-319-67162-8_12 is OK
- 10.1007/978-3-030-12079-5_4 is OK
- 10.1145/3209950.3209955 is OK
- 10.1145/3338906.3338912 is OK
- 10.1145/3209950.3209951 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.3509134 is OK
- 10.25080/Majora-92bf1922-00a is OK
- 10.1109/MCSE.2007.55 is OK
- 10.1038/s41592-019-0686-2 is OK
- 10.1007/978-3-030-41705-5 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- None

INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

Wordcount for paper.md is 1717

[editorialbot]

:point_right::page_facing_up: Download article proof :page_facing_up: View article proof on GitHub :page_facing_up: :point_left:

[erik-whiting]

Review checklist for @erik-whiting

Conflict of interest

• [x] I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• [x] I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• [x] Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/Beuth-Erdelt/DBMS-Benchmarker?
• [x] License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• [x] Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@perdelt) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• [x] Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines

Functionality

• [x] Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• [x] Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• [x] Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• [x] A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• [x] Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• [x] Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• [x] Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• [ ] Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• [ ] Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• [x] Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• [x] A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• [x] State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• [x] Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• [x] References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[erik-whiting]

@gkthiruvathukal has the citation format for the journal changed in the last few months? In reading the paper, I noticed the use of "c.f." throughout and I am unsure what it means. It appears before some citations or after others, or sometimes not at all. I'm pretty confused by it, can you confirm if it is something specific to JOSS? Sorry if this is a silly question.

@perdelt if you know the answer to this, please feel free to chime in.

[perdelt]

@erik-whiting Thank you for your comment! This is intended to mark references that are not a source of citation, but rather invite the reader to compare information provided elsewhere. https://tinyurl.com/mwd2ak3c I see it's actually used a lot here, so I might remove a few.

[gkthiruvathukal]

@erik-whiting, @perdelt's explanation is correct. In general, I would like to suggest minimizing use of these additional references. These would probably make more sense for an expanded work, perhaps an article that eventually cites this software, if accepted by JOSS, of course.

[simon-lewis]

Review checklist for @simon-lewis

Conflict of interest

• [x] I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• [x] I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• [x] Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/Beuth-Erdelt/DBMS-Benchmarker?
• [x] License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• [x] Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@perdelt) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• [x] Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines

Functionality

• [x] Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• [x] Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• [x] Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• [x] A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• [x] Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• [x] Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• [x] Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• [x] Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• [x] Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• [x] Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• [x] A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• [x] State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• [x] Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• [x] References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[simon-lewis]

@gkthiruvathukal @perdelt @erik-whiting - Hi team. Just weighing in on this one. In my opinion, "cf." tends to be used to cite alternative sources, even contradictory ones. It means "compare with" so typically used after another citation, to say "but also check this one out". Hope that helps.

I've started my review so will feed back in more detail.

Like @erik-whiting , I will try to avoid commenting too deeply on grammar, unless it really is a question of meaning / understanding.

[perdelt]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

:point_right::page_facing_up: Download article proof :page_facing_up: View article proof on GitHub :page_facing_up: :point_left:

[perdelt]

I incorporated Erik's suggestions for improvement

• less c.f.
• who is audience?
• why Python?
• why repetition?

I hope this makes some points clearer.

[perdelt]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

:point_right::page_facing_up: Download article proof :page_facing_up: View article proof on GitHub :page_facing_up: :point_left:

[erik-whiting]

Howdy, I've completed all items in my initial review and for the most part, everything looks great. There are a few items with the documentation that I think should be improved upon before publication; I've elaborated on these items on a documentation-related issue but I will generalize here:

1. I don't see any automated tests or instructions for manual tests. Can you please provide a way for people to verify functionality?

2. There is no contribution guide, can you please add one?

3. There is no information provided for people wanting to open issues or find support, can you please provide guidance for potential users that need help?

In the linked issue, there is further elaboration, just giving the synopsis here. Once these issues are addressed, it's a 👍 from me.

Oh and by the way, the documentation is great, very thorough!

[simon-lewis]

Hi team, My review is now completed. See issues raised under Docs and Functionality - mainly around startup / connection lag but nothing major. As @erik-whiting says, documentation is overall very good with great depth on example use-cases. Thanks. Simon @simon-lewis

[erik-whiting]

Good morning everyone. @gkthiruvathukal the author has completed everything I pointed out in the review and I suggest publishing. Thanks @perdelt for suggesting me as a reviewer and for responding so promptly to everything. Thanks also to @simon-lewis for his help reviewing as well.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

[gkthiruvathukal]

Great! I will act on this and other pending submissions by Monday in US Central. More soon.

[simon-lewis]

Apologies @gkthiruvathukal but not sure if I needed to formally close my review. All issues raised are now closed / resolved. Great comms and action from @perdelt. A pleasure to complete this review. Open to follow-up questions any time. Thanks team.

[perdelt]

Thank you all! It was also a pleasure for me and I was able to improve the paper and the documentation. That is the spirit of open source software, to benefit from the knowledge of others. Looking forward to other occasions for collaboration! Patrick

[perdelt]

ping @gkthiruvathukal everything ok?

[gkthiruvathukal]

@perdelt Many apologies for the delay. This was kind of a big week for me at the university. Let me catch up and see where we stand here, but things look good!

[gkthiruvathukal]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

:point_right::page_facing_up: Download article proof :page_facing_up: View article proof on GitHub :page_facing_up: :point_left:

[gkthiruvathukal]

Hi @perdelt. Thank you for your patience. Please do the following:

• [ ] Make a tagged release of your software, and list the version tag of the archived version here.
• [ ] Archive the reviewed software in Zenodo
• [ ] Check the Zenodo deposit has the correct metadata, this includes the title (should match the paper title) and author list (make sure the list is correct and people who only made a small fix are not on it); you may also add the authors' ORCID.
• [ ] List the Zenodo DOI of the archived version here.

[perdelt]

Hi @gkthiruvathukal please find the information here

Hi @perdelt. Thank you for your patience. Please do the following:

• [x] Make a tagged release of your software, and list the version tag of the archived version here. v0.13.0
• [x] Archive the reviewed software in Zenodo
• [x] Check the Zenodo deposit has the correct metadata, this includes the title (should match the paper title) and author list (make sure the list is correct and people who only made a small fix are not on it); you may also add the authors' ORCID.
• [x] List the Zenodo DOI of the archived version here. 10.5281/zenodo.7213676

[danielskatz]

@gkthiruvathukal - this seems to be waiting for you to move it forward. I can do it for you as track chair if you want, or you can do it, which I would prefer 🙂

[gkthiruvathukal]

@danielskatz Thanks but I will do it. You already do so much! I have just been dealing with a minor crisis and trying to catch up. I should be able to act on this shortly.