[REVIEW]: modepy: Basis Functions, Interpolation, and Quadrature (not just) for Finite Elements

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @alexfikl (Alexandru Fikl)
Repository: https://github.com/inducer/modepy
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch): joss
Version: v2026.1
Editor: @Nikoleta-v3
Reviewers: @capitalaslash, @FranziLesi
Archive: 10.5281/zenodo.18304836

Status

Status badge code:

HTML: <a href="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/e2923abc055ee41050d18f7ffa9cb01d"><img src="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/e2923abc055ee41050d18f7ffa9cb01d/status.svg"></a>
Markdown: [![status](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/e2923abc055ee41050d18f7ffa9cb01d/status.svg)](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/e2923abc055ee41050d18f7ffa9cb01d)

Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@felipefr & @capitalaslash, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review.
First of all you need to run this command in a separate comment to create the checklist:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/pre-2026-submission/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @Nikoleta-v3 know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @capitalaslash

📝 Checklist for @FranziLesi

[editorialbot]

Hello humans, I'm @editorialbot, a robot that can help you with some common editorial tasks.

For a list of things I can do to help you, just type:

@editorialbot commands

For example, to regenerate the paper pdf after making changes in the paper's md or bib files, type:

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

✅ OK DOIs

- 10.1137/141000671 is OK
- 10.1007/bf01060030 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.15302339 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.15114385 is OK
- 10.1002/nme.2579 is OK
- 10.1137/0715019 is OK
- 10.1137/20m1321802 is OK
- 10.1002/nme.6528 is OK
- 10.1145/3276483 is OK
- 10.1016/0021-9991(80)90005-4 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.14526145 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.5541216 is OK
- 10.1137/110860082 is OK
- 10.1007/s10543-006-0045-4 is OK
- 10.1007/s10665-006-9086-6 is OK
- 10.21105/joss.07702 is OK
- 10.1016/j.camwa.2015.03.017 is OK
- 10.1016/j.camwa.2009.10.027 is OK

🟡 SKIP DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: The Mathematical Theory of Finite Element Methods
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Grudge: An environment for Discontinuous Galerkin ...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Nodal Discontinuous Galerkin Methods
- No DOI given, and none found for title:  PyNucleus: A finite element code that specificall...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Pytential: Evaluate layer and volume potentials ac...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: ast — Abstract Syntax Trees
- No DOI given, and none found for title: StartUpDG.jl: Reference elements and physical mesh...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: SymEngine: A fast symbolic manipulation library wr...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: SymPy: Symbolic computing in Python
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Approximation Theory and Approximation Practice

❌ MISSING DOIs

- None

❌ INVALID DOIs

- None

[Nikoleta-v3]

Hey @felipefr, @capitalaslash (@alexfikl) 👋🏻 this is the review thread for the paper. All of our communications will take place here from now on.

As a reviewer, your first step is to create a checklist for your review by entering:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

at the top of a new comment in this thread.

These checklists contain the JOSS requirements ✅ As you go through the submission, please check off any items that have been satisfied. The first comment in this thread also includes links to the JOSS reviewer guidelines.

You’re both familiar with the JOSS process, but just as a quick reminder: reviewers are encouraged to submit issues and pull requests directly on the software repository. When doing so, please mention #9294 so a link to this thread is created (and I can keep track of everything that’s happening). Alternatively, feel free to leave your reviews as comments on this issue!

We aim to complete reviews within about 2–4 weeks. Please let me know if either of you needs more time. We can also use EditorialBot to set automatic reminders if you’ll be away for a known period.

Feel free to ping me (@Nikoleta-v3) anytime if you have questions or concerns 😄🙋🏻

[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.98  T=0.38 s (194.5 files/s, 173538.5 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Python                          45           2529           2165          49268
JSON                             1              0              0          10360
TeX                              2             40              6            367
Markdown                         2             64              0            256
YAML                             5             28              6            205
reStructuredText                 9            101             92            181
TOML                             2             20              9            135
make                             3             25              6            114
INI                              1              8              0             24
Bourne Shell                     3              2              1             18
Text                             1              1              0              2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            74           2818           2285          60930
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

   314	Andreas Kloeckner
   158	Alexandru Fikl
    21	Andreas Klöckner
    16	xywei
    11	Alex Fikl
     8	Thomas Gibson
     8	[6~
     5	Xiaoyu Wei
     4	dependabot[bot]
     3	Addison Alvey-Blanco
     3	Matt Wala
     2	Addison A
     2	Addison A.
     1	Thomas H. Gibson

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 1173

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

✅ License found: MIT License (Valid open source OSI approved license)

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[capitalaslash]

Review checklist for @capitalaslash

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/inducer/modepy?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@alexfikl) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1. Contribute to the software 2. Report issues or problems with the software 3. Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?