The Need for Indoor Plumbing

I've been in the business of creating and deploying scientific software for more years than I'll admit to. Over these many years, there have been several constants: the work is challenging, fun, and makes a positive impact on our society. Another constant is the way work like this is funded, typically by large research organizations such as Federal agencies, research foundations, National Labs and commercial R&D labs.

However, there is a dirty little rumor which unfortunately has some truth behind it: when developing software through large-scale research programs, the current process is relatively ineffective and wasteful. Rather than creating usable tools for scientists and engineers, often what is created are shiny toys with little practical use. Instead, as one of our collaborators Russ Taylor at UNC so aptly put it, we could use a lot more basic "indoor plumbing" to complement our bleeding-edge zero-G toilets with the latest bells and whistles.

Here's a typical example. I'll travel to a university or lab where absolutely amazing scientific work is being done. Imagine that the lead scientists, research staff, and graduate students have developed a new imaging modality with higher resolution, faster acquisition, and greater accuracy. They have created new algorithms to segment, analyze, and/or image the resulting data. But suddenly it all comes crashing down: their software environment is a complete mess...