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Comment by lliiffee | Hacker News Reader

It basically isn't, which I suspect is a huge collective waste of effort. I have several times had what I thought was a reasonably obvious idea that was "sure to work" which I was baffled that I couldn't find in the literature. Then, after spending a lot of time pursing it, I find it didn't work (for non-obvious reasons). I suspect I am one in a line of many people that have gone through that process.

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I occasionally wish there was a Journal of Negative Results. However, there is a real problem in that it is nearly impossible to properly interpret a negative result. Something might not work because you have a sloppy experimental technique or because you have a typo in the implementation of your algorithm.

There are real current efforts to create such publications. This is quite relevant in pharmacology and other areas where biostatistics is applied, since there are often fewer incentives to publish the results of, say, a drug trial that fails to find a significant effect.

Hence, The Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine (yes, it is actually called that): http://www.jnrbm.com/

I like empirical papers describing experiences of applying ideas in real situations, in which they tend to expose unsuccessful approaches they have tried before finding one that works. It is not only useful but also enjoyable to read.

I'd like to see more of those papers, especially from industry. But to write such kind of paper, you usually have to devote to a successful project all the way through, which usually takes a few years or more, and then you can write just one paper. Not very efficient way to produce publications, and you might have to write a paper in your spare time, for your employer wants you to write code instead....

It would seem embarrassing to write up in a paper; but excellent filler (and justified) in a thesis. The thesis goes online, google indexes it; now it's available as lit.

And I bet you didn't document your failure... like everyone else before you.

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