Web: OMII-UK collaborations workshop Exploiting and sustaining research code 30/04/2009

Web: Who Pascal Ekin – University of Manchester Mike Jackson – University of Edinburgh Tobias Schiebeck – University of Manchester Claire Sloggett – Intersect Aaron Turner – University of York

Web: Issues Researchers dont productise code o Its not research – code is not citeable o Rapidly changes and may be discarded and redone o But even API doc and comments are neglected Researchers dont publish code o Its just a proof-of-concept o No-one will use it Research councils dont fund productisation/hardening Lack of comments/doc o Productisation blocker – what does it do? o Reuse blocker – what does it do? how do I use it?

Web: Issues Lack of tools to enable researchers to reuse components o Drag-and drop e-science components o Glue together o Focus on business logic Research code decay o Seems faster as code often isnt stable in first place o Layerered on other unstable code e.g. e-science middlewares

Web: Combat decay Virtualisation Pros and cons o Access to the particular OS and tools that are needed o Reluctance to risk changing a black box that works Miss possible gains in efficiency or power Expose as services or provide another layer Pros and cons o Buffer from changes in middleware o Validate inputs and improve robustness o Who hosts? o Who maintains? o Another layer is another source of bugs or can decay

Web: Encourage improved coding Comments, APIs, what it does How? o Very short cheap courses provided by unis o Online materials o Cite benefits to researchers Pros and cons o Productisation by third parties o Maintainable o Reusable o Who pays? o Who ensures that researchers continue to apply what has been learned?

Web: Software consultants Pool of trained software developers Available to all researchers in a uni Pros and cons o Expertise on tap o Can ingest, review, harden, support o Who funds? Uni Portion of a research grant o What if there arent enough projects? Cut down the team and lose expertise?

Web: Code as a recognised research artefact By researchers, unis, research councils Citeable code o A paper describing an experiment and results is valid o So why not code? Reproduce results Validate implementation Research councils insist that code is published in a repository Repository evaluates code How to enable such a fundamental shift?!