Cultural Barriers to Software Productivity Practices at Los Alamos
Charles R. Ferenbaugh
TL;DR
This paper explores how cultural differences between physics and computer science communities at LANL hinder the adoption of modern software productivity practices, emphasizing non-technical barriers.
Contribution
It identifies and describes specific cultural barriers to implementing modern software practices in a high-stakes nuclear research environment.
Findings
Cultural differences significantly impede practice adoption.
Non-technical barriers are more influential than technical challenges.
Understanding these barriers can inform better implementation strategies.
Abstract
In recent years, code projects in the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have given increased attention to modern software productivity practices. We found that some of the biggest barriers to adoption of new practices were not technical but cultural. This paper describes several of the cultural differences between the physics and computer science communities at LANL.
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Taxonomy
TopicsScientific Computing and Data Management · Software Engineering Techniques and Practices · Distributed systems and fault tolerance