[paperwork]

Can you describe a bit more about what is going on in the project? The file you linked is over 2.5k lines of c++ code, and that is just the “setup” file. As you say, this is supposed to be a statistical model, I expected this to be R, Python or one of the standard statistical packages.

Why is there so much c++ code?

[fsh]

It's a Monte-Carlo simulation, not a statistical model. These are usually written in C++ for performance reasons.

[dandelion_lover]

Or Fortran.

[recursivecaveat]

It is essentially a detailed simulation of viral spread, not just a programmed distribution or anything. It's all in C++ because it's pretty performance-critical.

[disgruntledphd2]

Because much of this code was written in the 80's, I suspect. In general, there's a bunch of really old scientific codebases in particular disciplines because people have been working on these problems for a looooonnngg time.

[roel_v]

Who says anything about statistical models?