I completely agree. If this is publishable science, then a strong and reproducible description of the science and algorithms used is all that is necessary.
I would be very interested if the author had actually given even a single instance where the lack of software code that merely implements the experiment has completely impeded progress on the science in a paper. Even if this were the case, would that not imply simply more algorithmic detail is required?
Of course, for all of the above, I am referring to non-computer science. There may be special circumstances in computer science where the code itself is the published algorithm or an intended description of the underlying science.
For an example of a specific circumstance consider theorem provers, because the proof is usually too large for a paper publication. The Archive of Formal Proofs (AFP) [0] is a repository for Isabelle proofs, which my collegues use. They submit a proof to AFP and write a paper about the results, where they cite the AFP publication.
I would be very interested if the author had actually given even a single instance where the lack of software code that merely implements the experiment has completely impeded progress on the science in a paper. Even if this were the case, would that not imply simply more algorithmic detail is required?
Of course, for all of the above, I am referring to non-computer science. There may be special circumstances in computer science where the code itself is the published algorithm or an intended description of the underlying science.