THzTools submission

[jsdodge]

Submitting Author: Name (@jsdodge) All current maintainers: (@jsdodge) Package Name: THzTools Data analysis software tools for terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) Repository Link: https://github.com/dodge-research-group/thztools Version submitted: 0.5.2 EiC: @cmarmo Editor: TBD
Reviewer 1: TBD
Reviewer 2: TBD
Archive: TBD JOSS DOI: TBD Version accepted: TBD Date accepted (month/day/year): TBD

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Description

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THzTools provides tools to simplify and improve procedures for data analysis in terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). Some of the methods included in the package were described previously in the paper at this link. As the name suggests, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy involves measurements of terahertz-frequency electromagnetic waveforms that are are acquired as a function of time. A variety of methods exist to transform these measurements into functions of frequency, but the standard procedures have several pitfalls. THzTools provides software tools that make it easier for researchers to use the best available methods for analyzing their data.

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  • [ ] Data extraction
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  • [ ] Data deposition
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• [ ] Education

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  • Who is the target audience and what are scientific applications of this package?
    The target audience is researchers working with THz-TDS, although the procedures may be useful in other areas that use time-domain measurement systems. The package is designed for characterizing the time-domain noise performance of THz-TDS measurement systems and for analyzing the results from these systems in the frequency domain.

  • Are there other Python packages that accomplish the same thing? If so, how does yours differ? The Fit-TDS package provides a graphical user interface that simplifies THz-TDS data analysis with standard analysis methods. THzTools focuses on lower-level statistical procedures, and implements algorithms that are not available in Fit-TDS.

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[cmarmo]

Hello @jsdodge ! Thank you for submitting THzTools to pyOpenSci. Sorry for the delay of my answer! I'm Chiara and I'm going to take care of your submission for the initial editorial checks. I will be back to you by the end of the week. Thanks for your patience!

[jsdodge]

Hi Chiara,

Thanks for the update on the timeline. Do you have any suggestions for ways that we can continue development without disrupting the review? Would it be ok, for example, to continue developing on the dev branch as long as we don't merge these into the main branch?

[cmarmo]

Do you have any suggestions for ways that we can continue development without disrupting the review? Would it be ok, for example, to continue developing on the dev branch as long as we don't merge these into the main branch?

I'm starting the editorial checks right now: I can perform them on the main branch if you prefer, once we agree on a version to be submitted you can tag the last modifications and we can update the description of the issue. Would that be ok for you?

[cmarmo]

Editor in Chief checks

Hi @jsdodge ! Thank you again for submitting your package for pyOpenSci review. Below are the basic checks that your package needs to pass to begin our review. If some of these are missing, we will ask you to work on them before the review process begins.

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Editor comments

THzTools is in excellent shape, congratulations! I have some minor comments before starting looking for an editor:

• in the README.md file installation and development instructions are missing: a simple pip install and/or conda install will be enough (this explicits the fact that the package is available from both the channels), and then links to installation and development pages in the documentation.
• the CONTRIBUTING.md file is missing: do you mind adding it with some basic instructions and a link to the contribuuting section in the documentation?
• I noticed that in the issue template for bug reports the explanation says "help us improve SciPy" ... :grin:

Do you have any suggestions for ways that we can continue development without disrupting the review? Would it be ok, for example, to continue developing on the dev branch as long as we don't merge these into the main branch?

I'm starting the editorial checks right now: I can perform them on the main branch if you prefer, once we agree on a version to be submitted you can tag the last modifications and we can update the description of the issue. Would that be ok for you?

I realize my answer was a bit out of scope... sorry for that. Indeed, I believe it is a good idea to continue the development in a separate branch during review: however, reviewers might ask for modifications too and everything would in principle end in a new version accepted at the end of the review process. Please just clarify with reviewers in which branch you are addressing their comments, we had some misunderstanding in the past.

[jsdodge]

Hi Chiara,

Thanks! We can add installation instructions to the README.md file and change the issue template right away. This raises a similar question to my earlier one: should we do this in the main branch? Normally we would also bump the version number when making changes in main, but the submission version is listed as v0.5.0.

Regarding the CONTRIBUTING.md file, we have a contributing.rst file in /docs/source/. Could you recommend a way to include this information at the top level in a CONTRIBUTING.md file and in the documentation without duplicating it? A related question is whether we can do the same thing with the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file. Currently we just have a GitHub link to CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md in contributing.rst, but it would be better to include it directly in the documentation. We used a link because we didn't know how to use ReST to pull it into the documentation source.

[cmarmo]

Thanks! We can add installation instructions to the README.md file and change the issue template right away. This raises a similar question to my earlier one: should we do this in the main branch? Normally we would also bump the version number when making changes in main, but the submission version is listed as v0.5.0.

Technically the review is not started yet: once done with the changes we can edit the issue description.

Regarding the CONTRIBUTING.md file, we have a contributing.rst file in /docs/source/. Could you recommend a way to include this information at the top level in a CONTRIBUTING.md file and in the documentation without duplicating it?

Some general information would be enough in the CONTRIBUTING.md file: a link to contributing.rst there will complete the instructions. See for example what is done in one of the previously accepted packages.

A related question is whether we can do the same thing with the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file. Currently we just have a GitHub link to CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md in contributing.rst, but it would be better to include it directly in the documentation. We used a link because we didn't know how to use ReST to pull it into the documentation source.

Your solution is fine with our standards: if you prefer to have the code of conduct in the documentation then you can use the same approach suggested for the CONTRIBUTING.md file and link the documentation reference inside.

[jsdodge]

I just released THzTools v0.5.1 with the changes that you requested. I've also updated the version number in the submission documentation.

[cmarmo]

Thank you @jsdodge ! Time for me to look for an editor!

[jsdodge]

Hi @cmarmo, I have just updated the submission with the latest release, v0.5.2.

Could you please update me on the editor search?

[cmarmo]

Thank you @jsdodge for the follow-up

Could you please update me on the editor search?

I'm sorry to say that I am still looking... I guess the end of summer plus the beginning of the academic year are not making things easier.... thanks for your patience!

[lwasser]

@cmarmo thank you so much for leading the pre-checks for this package!! @jsdodge we just have had a rotation for our EiC (we do this every 3 months). To help us get caught up, I was able to find an editor from our team to take on this package! @banesullivan !! The next step here is to find reviewers. Do you have any reviewers in mind that we could reach out to? This area if quite specific and we'd like to have atleast one person with domain expertise, involved in the review. many thanks for your patience!

[jsdodge]

Thanks @lwasser ! And hello @banesullivan . We look forward to working with you on the review.

Would it be possible for us to contact potential reviewers privately before suggesting them to you? I'm hesitant to list people publicly here without consulting them first.

[lwasser]

@jsdodge of course. I think reaching out to them privately is ideal. Normally we allow one suggestion from the author(s) and then we will try to find a second. The second reviewer can be more generally focused on packaging/usability. Finding reviewers has taken some time lately.

[jsdodge]

Hi @lwasser and @banesullivan , Romain Peretti (ORCID) has kindly agreed to help with the review. He leads the @THzbiophotonics group at CNRS in Lille, France. Please let me know if you need further help with the review.

[lwasser]

@jsdodge this is great. I'll leave a few notes and then will let @banesullivan step in. We may have a second reviewer. In the meantime, does Romain have a GitHub handle so we can add them to this issue? The review will happen fully in this issue with links to any issues or pr's opened of course!

[jsdodge]

Thank you, @lwasser , I'm glad that you may have found a second reviewer. I believe that Romain's GitHub handle is @THzbiophotonics, but I'll check.

[jsdodge]

Hello, please use the GitHub handle @Romain-Peretti for Romain. Thanks!

[lwasser]

ok fantastic. ✅ we have two reviewers now assigned to this issue. @frank1010111 and @Romain-Peretti I believe we are at this step in the review process and @banesullivan can take the review forward from here!! Bane can you please onboard the reviewers and kick things off?

Thank you all. Please let me know if i can be helpful moving forward!

[banesullivan]

:wave: Hi @frank1010111 and @Romain-Peretti! Thank you for volunteering to review THzTools for pyOpenSci! I'm excited to kick off this review and I'll try to chime in with a few comments of my own but overall THzTools is looking in great shape -- wonderful work, @jsdodge!

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Reviewers: @frank1010111 @Romain-Peretti Due date: 2024-11-08

[frank1010111]

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Estimated hours spent reviewing: 4

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Review Comments

[jsdodge]

Hi @frank1010111 , thanks for your feedback so far. How would you like to proceed with the code updates? I've already addressed the issues that you posted, but just in my local dev branch. At what point would you recommend that I push these changes to the remote, merge them with the main branch, and create a new release? Should I wait for you to complete your review before doing any or all of these?

[frank1010111]

I appreciate it. If you want me to review the dev branch, I'm okay doing that. Whatever works best for you is good for me.

[jsdodge]

In that case, I merged the changes into the main branch and created a new release, THzTools v0.5.3 (beta). I also closed the issues that you raised. I see that there are several unchecked items, so I'll wait for further recommendations.

[banesullivan]

Hey @jsdodge, I anticipate that a few more changes will be made during this review process, so there is no need to issue a new release for each of these changes during the review (unless you prefer to do so!). As the review finalizes though, we can make sure a release is issued and update the version specifier in the submission.

Moving forward, would you please try to link back to this GitHub issue by pasting the URL link in the descriptions of any Pull Requests or new Issues? This will help us track changes to the software that were a direct result of this review and help us check off items in the reviewers comments. Thanks!

[jsdodge]

Thanks for the suggestions, @banesullivan , will do.

[frank1010111]

Today, I checked the paper draft created by a github action and found it meets JOSS specifications.

[frank1010111]

I've got to say, your documentation is beautifully organized.

[jsdodge]

Thank you! It's nice to have that effort recognized.

[frank1010111]

A nit for your documentation is that you've got docstrings for the parameters of your dataclasses, but Sphinx expects docstrings for your attributes. For instance, the lines here in NoiseModel are rendered fine, but Sphinx doesn't know to put them with these attributes.

The solution to this oddity is something like this

@dataclass
class Snake:
    """Oh no, it's a snake!"""

    width: float
    """Width of the snake."""
    
    length: float
    """Length of the snake."""

Once again, it's a nit that you don't have to change. Your documentation is perfectly readable as is. Just a fun fact for you if you're as obsessive about these things as me.

[jsdodge]

Thanks for that suggestion. Just to clarify, I'm using the numpydoc extension, so are you recommending that I repeat the class Parameters section in a separate Attributes section, as in the ExampleError class listed in the Sphinx Example NumPy Style Python Docstrings?