Improving the quality of scientific computing via software engineering methodologies

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The objective of the proposed research program is to improve the quality of scientific computation (SC) software. Although many high quality algorithms have been implemented, especially with respect to the qualities of correctness, reliability and performance, there are other qualities, such as usability, maintainability, verifiability, productivity, reusability and portability that are often neglected. To address these quality concerns, the proposed approach is to adapt software engineering (SE) methodologies that have been successfully applied for other types of software. One new idea that can be adapted from SE is the development of SC code as a program family. In this approach similar software products are developed together, with the common parts reused and the variable features identified and systematically handled. This research has the potential to significantly improve SC code with respect to reusability because the common code only has to be implemented once. Testing is another area of SE practise that will be adapted with the goal of improving the quality of SC software. The testing research will be challenging because most testing methodologies assume that for each set of test inputs an expected output can be identified, but this is often not the case for SC software. This challenge will be addressed through techniques of parallel testing with independent algorithms, comparison to closed-form solutions, the use of interval and infinite precision arithmetic, a posteriori error estimation and systematic identification and documentation of known characteristics of the solution.