Domain-Specific Languages for Ocean Modeling and Simulation

海洋中的物理、化学和生物过程对全球碳循环产生重大影响并作出重大贡献，对全球碳循环的透彻了解对于未来预测气候和气候变化至关重要。因此，海洋地球化学模拟和模拟是数值气候研究的重要组成部分。通过OceanDSL，我们将这一领域定位于研究软件工程师，他们通常具有物理学，气象学，化学，生物学和海洋学的背景。计算科学是一个多学科领域，位于数学和统计学，计算机科学和科学核心学科的交叉点。计算科学涉及模型和模拟的发展，以理解自然系统，回答理论和实验都无法回答的问题。尽管所谓的计算机实验对科学发现过程越来越重要，但成熟的软件工程实践很少在计算科学中采用。然而，与此同时，计算科学社区开始意识到软件工程是任何提高计算科学软件生产力的努力的核心。计算科学需要新的特定领域的软件工程方法和技术，模型驱动软件工程是计算科学的一种方法，它是信息系统和嵌入式系统领域软件工程的一种成熟方法。对于模型驱动的软件工程来说，领域特定语言（DSL）是必不可少的。然而，在高性能计算，特别是海洋系统建模，DSL的使用很少，到目前为止。这是由于在该领域缺乏适当的DSL，以及现有工具的适用性与海洋系统建模所涉及的不同角色和任务相结合，OceanDSL项目的目标是建立和评估海洋生物地球化学建模和模拟的DSL基础设施，模拟运行的配置和高性能计算硬件的部署。OceanDSL项目的核心是这些DSL的开发和比较评估，包括它们的代码生成器（用于外部DSL）。程序库（用于内部DSL）。我们的研究方法是双重的，结合了建设性和经验性的方法。通过建设性的研究，我们设计了内部和外部DSL。对于内部DSL，我们实现了适当的库。对于外部DSL，我们实现了用于编辑和代码生成的相关基础设施。通过实证研究，我们计划与海洋系统建模人员和研究软件工程师一起对DSL及其基础设施进行系统的实证评估。一个具体的研究问题涉及内部DSL与外部DSL的比较。

The physical, chemical and biological processes in the ocean significantly influence and contribute to the global carbon cycle, whose thorough understanding is crucial for future predictions of climate and climate change. As a consequence, ocean biogeochemical modelling and simulation is an important part of numerical climate research. With OceanDSL, we target this domain for research software engineers who typically have a background in physics, meteorology, chemistry, biology and oceanography.Computational science is a multidisciplinary field lying at the intersection of mathematics and statistics, computer science, and core disciplines of science. Computational science involves the development of models and simulations to understand natural systems answering questions that neither theory nor experiment alone are equipped to answer. Despite the increasing importance of so-called in-silico experiments to the scientific discovery process, well-established software engineering practices are rarely adopted in computational science. However, meanwhile the computational science community starts to appreciate that software engineering is central to any effort to increase computational science’s software productivity. For computational science, new domain-specific software engineering methods and techniques are required.A method that software engineering can offer to computational science is model-driven software engineering, which is a well-established approach for software engineering in the domains of information systems and embedded systems. Essential for model-driven software engineering are Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs). However, in high-performance computing, and especially ocean system modelling, DSLs are used seldomly, so far. This is caused by the lack of proper DSLs in that domain and the applicability of existing tooling in conjunction with the different roles and tasks involved in ocean system modelling.The objective of the OceanDSL project is to build and evaluate a DSL infrastructure for marine biogeochemical modelling and simulation, the configuration of simulation runs and the deployment on high-performance computing hardware. Core of the OceanDSL project is the development and comparative evaluation of these DSLs including their code generators (for external DSLs) resp. program libraries (for internal DSLs).Our research approach is twofold, combining constructive and empirical methods. With constructive research, we design both internal and external DSLs. For internal DSLs, we implement appropriate libraries. For external DSLs, we implement related infrastructure for editing and code generation. With empirical research, we plan a systematic empirical evaluation of the DSLs and its infrastructure together with ocean system modellers and research software engineers. A specific research question addresses the comparison of internal vs. external DSLs.