Title: automan: a simple, Python-based, automation framework for numerical computing,
Abstract: We present an easy-to-use, Python-based framework that allows a researcher to
automate their computational simulations. In particular the framework
facilitates assembling several long-running computations and producing various
plots from the data produced by these computations. The framework makes it
possible to reproduce every figure made for a publication with a single
command. It also allows one to distribute the computations across a network of
computers. The framework has been used to write research papers in numerical
computing. This paper discusses the design of the framework, and the benefits
of using it. The ideas presented are general and should help researchers
organize their computations for better reproducibility.