Quo Vadis, Scientific Software?

Abstract

A large majority of the papers published in SIAM journals, and elsewhere in our community, show a computational result of some kind---either as the main point (e.g., in SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing), for backing up theoretical claims about numerical methods (e.g., in SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis), or in modeling experimental observations. Indeed, the discipline that brings us these computations---computational science---is accepted today as the third leg of science, next to theory and experimentation. Yet, although we talk a lot about the underlying methods and algorithms, we almost never talk about their incarnation in real life: software. Alas, this is an important omission, as much remains to be improved in this area. First, whereas science prides itself on building on the shoulders of giants, this is not the case with software. Having moved past the Bourbaki movement, we readily accept a reference to a previously proven theorem

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