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What can frameworks do for you?

What can frameworks do for you?. CIG/IRIS Joint Workshop, June 8 2005 Bill Appelbe, VPAC. Outline. Scientific software development What is a framework - and why is it relevant? Who the heck is VPAC? Why are we here?. Scientific Software Development. An evolutionary trend

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What can frameworks do for you?

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  1. What can frameworks do for you? CIG/IRIS Joint Workshop, June 8 2005 Bill Appelbe, VPAC CIG/IRIS Workshop

  2. Outline • Scientific software development • What is a framework - and why is it relevant? • Who the heck is VPAC? • Why are we here? CIG/IRIS Workshop

  3. Scientific Software Development • An evolutionary trend • Maturity varies greatly across scientific disciplines and projects within those disciplines, e.g. • HIGH: genetics (blast searches, web interfaces, NCBI database) • LOW: astrophysics Communitycodes, shared repositories ofmodels and data Larger scale shared and reused models Small scale “throwaway” models CIG/IRIS Workshop

  4. Scientific Software Development • A higher maturity level usually means a more mature discipline • There is often no particular “community plan” to the evolution • Software evolution proceeds in parallel with community evolution • Usually by accident or natural selection • This is very inefficient • Large scale community codes and model and data repositories come at a considerable cost to develop and maintain • Scientists rarely have the expertise in “software engineering” to do it • Computer scientists are not very interested in getting involved • Frameworks are a potential solution CIG/IRIS Workshop

  5. Frameworks • Frameworks are • Reusable software components • Packaged yet adaptable software solutions • Endemic in commercial and open-source software • Websites: Jakarta/Struts; Gridsphere; … • Visualization: VTK • Databases: MySQL • Generic: .NET and J2EE • Frameworks can be • Off the shelf (all of the above) • Custom built (StGermain, Pyre) CIG/IRIS Workshop

  6. Frameworks - Success Stories • Increasing sophistication of the www • Anyone can setup an “eTailer” • Sophistication possible thru good architecture and tools • Decoupling of • Presentation (page style) • Input processing (forms) • Back-end databases • Business logic CIG/IRIS Workshop

  7. Frameworks - Failures • Unfortunately, it does not always work • Just because you are using or building a framework does not mean you will “lower the cost” of moving to a more mature discipline • Common failures • POOMA: “build it and they will come” • Globus3: “overwhelming complexity, buggy software” • Gridbus: “selling solutions to non-existant problems” • Keys to success: • Development must be driven by the community needs • Do it in small iterative steps, with constant feedback • Prefer an “off the shelf” solution (but choose wisely) • Do not let computer scientists run the show CIG/IRIS Workshop

  8. Why are we here? • There is an Australian version of CIG we are major players in • Access • We want CIG to succeed • And merge the Australian and American efforts • We want to aid the scientific community develop “better” software • Lower time/cost to develop • More adaptable/maintainable Our hypothesis: “Scientific software development, maintenance, and support is increasingly expensive and slow, yet increasingly important to the advancement of geophysical sciences” That includes websites, portals, data archives, scripts, not just applications! CIG/IRIS Workshop

  9. StGermain • A framework for the development of computational codes • Science neutral • Numerical technique neutral • Differs as it focuses on “maintainability” • Ability to create new products/derivatives • Ability to customize (extend/adapt) a derivative • Enforces maintenance of “integrity” • Experts deciding performance/flexibility tradeoffs CIG/IRIS Workshop

  10. The StGermain Family tree CIG/IRIS Workshop

  11. Thanks VPAC CSD (StGermain) Pat Sunter Luke Hodkinson Alan Lo Raquibul Hassan Bill Appelbe Caltech GPS Mike Gurnis Eun-seo Choi Puruv Thouriddey Monash MC2 Louis Moresi David May Snark Rob Turnbull Underworld & Benchmarks Dave Stegman Cecile Duboz Greg Watson University of Texas Luc Lavier CIG/IRIS Workshop

  12. The Agenda Today We are here to listen We are not selling anything! I’m here to offer technical advice What is feasible/not feasible in software Choices and alternatives in frameworks What works and does not I can offer quite a bit of organizational/project management advice We do a lot of commercial project management CIG/IRIS Workshop

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