A literate process for the certification of scientific and engineering software

科学和工程软件认证的文字流程

• 批准号: 447544-2013
• 负责人: Smith, Spencer
• 金额: $ 2.44万
• 依托单位: McMaster University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Collaborative Research and Development Grants
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=618824
• 关键词: literate; process; certification; scientific; engineering

Our principal objective is to develop certifiable scientific and engineering software. One problem with current processes is that there is considerable duplication between software artifacts, as well as a definite lack of traceability between these artifacts. We believe that we can solve both of these problems by adapting the ideas behind Literate Programming (LP), in which programs are written first with the goal of being understandable to human readers, rather than being artificially constrained by the ordering and formatting required by conventional computer code.In classical LP, from literate source files two items are extracted: the user readable documentation and the computer readable source code. Our proposed literate process will extend this idea so that "source" files can be processed in multiple ways to extract not just the code and its explanation, but also the requirements specification, the Application Program Interface (API), the test cases, the test report and the build instructions. This will allow us to share the considerable amount of information in common between all these software artifacts, thus decreasing duplication. At the same time traceability is increased, since this shared information will be extracted into the correct artifacts.To develop, motivate and document the literate process we will use a case study of code generation for a family of ordinary differential equation (ODE) solvers. In the family approach code is generated taking into account the commonalities in the family, but distinguishing each member based on its variabilities. The code generation approach facilitates reuse of certified components, leading to quick certification. The family of ODE solvers will be put in the context of nuclear safety analysis. In particular, an example will be developed that solves a system of ODEs as part of the thermal analysis of fuel pins in a nuclear reactor.

我们的主要目标是开发可认证的科学和工程软件。当前流程的一个问题是，软件构件之间存在相当大的重复，并且这些构件之间确实缺乏可跟踪性。我们相信，通过采用识字编程(LP)背后的思想，我们可以解决这两个问题。识字编程首先编写程序，目标是使人类能够理解，而不是被传统计算机代码所要求的顺序和格式人为地约束。在经典的识字编程中，从识字的源文件中提取两项：用户可读的文档和计算机可读的源代码。我们提议的识字过程将扩展这一想法，以便以多种方式处理“源”文件，不仅提取代码及其解释，还提取需求规范、应用程序接口(API)、测试用例、测试报告和构建说明。这将允许我们共享所有这些软件构件之间共有的大量信息，从而减少重复。同时增加了可追溯性，因为这些共享的信息将被提取到正确的人工制品中。为了开发、激励和记录识字过程，我们将使用一系列常微分方程(ODE)解算器的代码生成的案例研究。在家族方法中，生成的代码考虑了家族中的共性，但根据每个成员的可变性来区分每个成员。代码生成方法促进了认证组件的重用，从而实现了快速认证。将把ODE解算器家族放在核安全分析的范围内。特别是，将开发一个例子来解决作为核反应堆燃料销热分析的一部分的常微分方程组。