[Tutor] Citing Python

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Alan Gauld wrote:
> On 15/03/16 11:45, Holderness, Ellie wrote:
> 
> > How do I cite Python for my dissertation bibliography? 
> > I used version 3.5.1.
> 
> I'm not sure a citation is strictly necessary for a programming
> language, but if you want to you could cite the Python web site.
> Would you cite JavaScript, CSS or HTML if you built a website?
> Or SQL if you built a database?

If the dissertation was *about* the database, or website, certainly you 
would.

It is normal to cite the software used to generate results, so that 
others can replicate your work. If Ellie's dissertation depends on 
Python for her results, or if the dissertation is specifically about 
Python, then she will probably need to cite the specific version used.

One approach is to cite the reference manual for the specific version:

http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5482/how-do-i-reference-the-python-programming-language-in-a-thesis-or-a-paper

See also Brett Cannon's thesis:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/213879590_Localized_Type_Inference_of_Atomic_Types_in_Python

(Brett is one of the core developers of Python, particularly well known 
for his work on the new import system.)

It's also common to reference Mathematica:

http://support.wolfram.com/kb/472

This paper:

"Julia: A Fast Dynamic Language for Technical Computing"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.5145

references PyPy, Octave and R, but strangely not Julia!


> If you used a particular tutorial to learn the language
> you could cite that (either as a book or web site).

I don't think that is appropriate unless you are specifically referring 
to the tutorial in the dissertation.



-- 
Steve