If it’s simply an engineering feat I agree. Very, very, very often people tend to mix up science being done in technology spaces with engineering. Just because it’s being done in software and perhaps even without rigor doesn’t mean you’re not doing something novel and quite different at a fundamental perspective than someone else. Sometimes it could just be luck of the draw in an implementation approach that gets you there but that’s not always the case.

I’ve worked in scientific computing for awhile now and there are countless subtle decisions often done in the implementation phase that, from a theoretical perspective, aren’t definitively answered by the science working behind the scenes. There’s often a gap in knowledge and implementers either hit those gaps by trial and error, luck, or insight. That’s my opinion, at least. So I don’t think it’s always “just an implementation problem” some will claim, as if the science is well understood and solved. Perhaps it is, but from my experience that tends to not be the case.