Working towards Sustainable Software for Science
This talk will look at the goal of sustainable scientific software from the point-of-view of an NSF program officer who funds software as infrastructure, meaning software that enables a community beyond the developers to perform research, and from the point-of-view of the attendees of the First Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE1, http://wssspe.
Big Science and Infrastructure
-Hurricanes affect humans
-Multiphysics: atmosphere, ocean, coast, vegetation, soil
-Humans: what have they built, where are they, what will they do?
-Infrastructure
--Urgent/scheduled processing
--software applications
--etc.
Exploding data volumes and powerful simulation methods mean that more researchers need advanced infrastructure.
Science Infrastructure Challenges
-Science
--Larger teams, more disciplines, more countries
-Data
--Need for interoperability (systems and policies)
-Systems
-Software
-People
--Education, Training, career paths, credit and attribution
Software is really essential for the bulk of science
Research is becoming dependent on advances in software.
Software Vision
-Infrastructure role and lifecycle: Research, science and engineering, research, education
Discussion on ACI Software Cluster Programs
Discussion on Software Infrastructure Projects
Current NSF Software Infrastructure Projects bit.ly/sw-ci
Discussion of Software Infrastructure: Solicitation and Decision Process
Discussion of Working Toward Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (#WSSSPE)
http://wssspe.researchcomputing.org.uk/
-Motivation
-Developing Software
-Best Practices
-Policy
-Communities
-Defining Sustainability
-Career Paths
--People are essential elements of research infrastructure. Difficult to motivate scientists to create sustainable software.
-Ideas for Moving Forward