Reusability in Science: From Initial User Engagement to Dissemination of Results

TL;DR

This paper discusses how active user engagement and reusability of software tools in scientific computing foster sustainability and broad community benefits across diverse scientific domains.

Contribution

It introduces a life-cycle model for user engagement in scientific computing and demonstrates how reusability enhances software sustainability through practical experience.

Findings

Reusing software across different scientific domains is feasible and beneficial.

Active engagement between users and technology catalysts improves software reuse.

Reusability promotes long-term sustainability of scientific software.

Abstract

Effective use of parallel and distributed computing in science depends upon multiple interdependent entities and activities that form an ecosystem. Active engagement between application users and technology catalysts is a crucial activity that forms an integral part of this ecosystem. Technology catalysts play a crucial role benefiting communities beyond a single user group. An effective user-engagement, use and reuse of tools and techniques has a broad impact on software sustainability. From our experience, we sketch a life-cycle for user-engagement activity in scientific computational environment and posit that application level reusability promotes software sustainability. We describe our experience in engaging two user groups from different scientific domains reusing a common software and configuration on different computational infrastructures.