Developing Scientific Computing Software: Current Processes and Future Directions

Considerable emphasis in scientific computing (SC) software development has been placed on the software qualities of performance and correctness. However, other software qualities have received less attention, such as the qualities of usability, maintainability, testability and reusability. Presented in this book is a survey titled "Survey on Developing Scientific Computing Software," which is apparently the first conducted to explore the current approaches to SC software development and to determine which qualities of SC software are in most need of improvement. In terms of the problems in SC software development, a solution is proposed to improve the quality of SC software by using SE methodologies, concretely, using a modified Parnas' Rational Design Process (PRDP) and the Unified Software Development Process (USDP). To clarify the discussion of PRDP and USDP for SC software and to help SC software practitioners better understand how to use PRDP and USDP in SC software, a completely documented one- dimensional numerical integration solver (ONIS) example is presented for both PRDP and USDP.

Jin Tang, M.A.Sc: Studied Software Engineering at McMaster University, Canada.