[REVIEW]: qlass: A Python Package for Variational Quantum Algorithms on Photonic Devices

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @FarLab (Farrokh Labib)
Repository: https://github.com/unitaryfoundation/qlass
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch):
Version: v0.1.3
Editor: @danielskatz
Reviewers: @goerz, @zimboras, @burgholzer
Archive: Pending

Status

Status badge code:

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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

@goerz & @zimboras & @burgholzer, 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/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @danielskatz 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 @goerz

📝 Checklist for @burgholzer

[editorialbot]

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

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

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[editorialbot]

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

✅ OK DOIs

- 10.1088/2058-9565/ab8ebc is OK
- 10.5281/ZENODO.4062499 is OK
- 10.22331/q-2023-02-21-931 is OK
- 10.22331/q-2019-03-11-129 is OK
- 10.22331/q-2025-04-15-1708 is OK

🟡 SKIP DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: PySCF: the Python-based simulations of chemistry f...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Qiskit: An open-source framework for quantum compu...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Linear optical quantum computing with photonic qub...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Photonic quantum technologies
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Graphix: optimizing and simulating measurement-bas...

❌ MISSING DOIs

- None

❌ INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.98  T=0.05 s (994.4 files/s, 125437.8 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Python                          25            868           1236           2227
Jupyter Notebook                 1              0            530            184
Markdown                         2             65              0            159
reStructuredText                10            120            176            128
YAML                             5             22             21            109
TeX                              1              9              0             95
TOML                             1              7              1             34
DOS Batch                        1              8              1             26
Text                             1              0              0              9
make                             1              4              7              9
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            48           1103           1972           2980
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

   161	FarLab
    30	Akilan RAJAMANI
    14	dependabot[bot]
    13	Sai Nandan Morapakula
    11	Nathan Shammah
     9	Farrokh Labib
     9	Kitsunp
     1	Simba

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 1063

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

✅ License found: Apache License 2.0 (Valid open source OSI approved license)

[editorialbot]

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

[danielskatz]

@goerz & @zimboras & @burgholzer - Thanks for agreeing to review this submission.
This is the review thread for the paper. All of our communications will happen here from now on.

As you can see above, you each should use the command @editorialbot generate my checklist to create your review checklist. @editorialbot commands need to be the first thing in a new comment.

As you go over the submission, please check any items that you feel have been satisfied. There are also links to the JOSS reviewer guidelines.

The JOSS review is different from most other journals. Our goal is to work with the authors to help them meet our criteria instead of merely passing judgment on the submission. As such, reviewers are encouraged to submit issues and pull requests on the software repository. When doing so, please mention openjournals/joss-reviews#9316 so that a link is created to this thread (and I can keep an eye on what is happening). Please also feel free to comment and ask questions on this thread. In my experience, it is better to post comments/questions/suggestions as you come across them instead of waiting until you've reviewed the entire package.

We aim for reviews to be completed within about 2-4 weeks. Please let me know if either of you require some more time. We can also use editorialbot (our bot) to set automatic reminders if you know you'll be away for a known period of time.

Please feel free to ping me (@danielskatz) if you have any questions/concerns.

[goerz]

Review checklist for @goerz

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/unitaryfoundation/qlass?
• 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 (@FarLab) 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?

[burgholzer]

Review checklist for @burgholzer

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/unitaryfoundation/qlass?
• 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 (@FarLab) 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?

[nathanshammah]

@editorialbot check references

[editorialbot]

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

✅ OK DOIs

- 10.1088/2058-9565/ab8ebc is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.1701.08223 is OK
- 10.5281/zenodo.2562111 is OK
- 10.1103/RevModPhys.79.135 is OK
- 10.1038/nphoton.2009.229 is OK
- 10.5281/ZENODO.4062499 is OK
- 10.22331/q-2023-02-21-931 is OK
- 10.22331/q-2019-03-11-129 is OK
- 10.22331/q-2025-04-15-1708 is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.2212.11975 is OK

🟡 SKIP DOIs

- None

❌ MISSING DOIs

- None

❌ INVALID DOIs

- None