I have been working with my research group on a number of papers in a certain area of Computer Science. These papers have a certain portion which is theoretical (i.e. contains theorems, formalisms, algorithms) and a certain portion which is experimental (i.e. describes implementations and empirical results).

With regard to the experimental/practical sections, my supervisor generally suggests prioritizing the information that illuminates the general thrust of the paper (i.e. the section in the paper itself along with figures, etc) over the actual implementation details like links to code. Even if he considers releasing some tangible material, he seems to prefer to release executables rather than source code.

I can understand the rationale behind this because:

(1) In Academia, the final paper is the most important and recognized [artifact of research](https://journals.lww.com/cancernursingonline/Fulltext/2018/01000/Research_Artifact_Real_or_Not__Only_the_Discussion.1.aspx);

and

(2) Releasing unpolished source code could be embarrassing, because it might contain errors which could damage the reputation of our research group.

While I agree with this, I am conflicted over what this means for the *value* of the paper and the ethics of research.

* The papers do have some theoretical content, but they do not seem to be particularly valuable. Anyone else could have come up with those ideas with a little bit of thought.
* If there are no executable artifacts tied to my paper, I could just have been lying about my results. I am not, and the experiments are actually very rigorous, but this is fact is somewhat undermined
* Considering that a large part of our experimental work depends on comparing with artifacts created by other research groups, it seems petty not to release our artifacts
* The potential benefit of the transparency of having open source code seems to outweigh the potential harm from potential embarrassment that may result from bugs found by the community. In my experience, artifacts released by other research teams in similar areas do often contain bugs, but I still think positively of them.

Please help me understand if my argument has any merit, or if I am being irrational.