A Software Chasm: Software Engineering and Scientific Computing

Some time ago, a chasm opened between the scientific-computing community and the software engineering community. Originally, computing meant scientific computing. Today, science and engineering applications are at the heart of software systems such as environmental monitoring systems, rocket guidance systems, safety studies for nuclear stations, and fuel injection systems. Failures of such health-, mission-, or safety-related systems have served as examples to promote the use of software engineering best practices. Yet, the bulk of the software engineering community´s research is on anything but scientific-application software. This chasm has many possible causes. In this article, we look at the impact of one particular contributor in industry.