Category Archives: software engineering

Presentations at .astronomy 4 now on-line!

Many of the presentations given at the .astronomy 4 conference have now been posted on-line. The conference was held in Heidelberg, Germany in July, and I gave an overview of some of the many highlights a few weeks ago. This … Continue reading

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The Google Software Development Process: The Benefits of Code Review

This week, I have been attending the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) All-Hands Meeting in Tucson, Arizona. During a session on software best practices, I heard a talk by Rob Pike on software development practices at Google. He described how … Continue reading

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Software Training Discussion Session at .Astronomy 4

The dotAstronomy 4 conference included a number of what are called “unconference” sessions, which are organized at the conference rather than as part of an agenda.  I organized such a session on how to provide software engineering training for scientists: … Continue reading

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, social media, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Adoption of Software by a User Community: The Montage Image Mosaic Engine

This week’s post will be about building user communities, the topic of a paper I submitted for consideration for presentation at the Maintainable Software Practices in e-Science Workshop at the  8th IEEE International Conference on eScience 2012 in Chicago (Oct 8-12). … Continue reading

Posted in Astronomy, astronomy surveys, education, High performance computing, image mosaics, information sharing, Parallelization, social media, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized, user communities, visualization, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Exploring the Universe with Machine Learning

A short while ago, I attended a webinar on the above topic by Alex Gray and Nick Ball. The traditional approach to analytics involves identifying which collections of data or collections of information follow sets of rules. Machine learning (ML) … Continue reading

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, computer videos, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, galaxies, galaxy formation, Grid Computing, information sharing, knowledge based discovery, Machine learning, Parallelization, programming, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report From The Front Lines of .Astronomy 4

Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending the  .Astronomy 4 meeting in Heidelberg, Germany. This was the first time I have attended this annual meeting, and I had the honor delivering one of the keynote addresses, on “How … Continue reading

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, citzen science, Cloud computing, data archives, education, High performance computing, information sharing, programming, social media, social networking, software engineering, software sustainability, user communities, visualization, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SPIE Conference: Distributed Agile Software Development in Astronomy; the SKA Example

I am attending the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands (July 1-6, 2012). One of the most interesting talks I have attended so far, in the Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy conference, was given jointly by Rebecca … Continue reading

Posted in agile development, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, High performance computing, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, SKA, software engineering, software maintenance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

An Example of Cloud Computing in Astronomy Education and Training

In a number of previous posts, I have described how cloud computing can be effective in supporting “high-burst” or one-time computing needs. Generally, the cloud is too expensive to support science services on a 24/7 basis. I recently learned of … Continue reading

Posted in Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, education, ESA, Gaia, High performance computing, information sharing, Milky Way, software engineering | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Software Carpentry Boot Camps: Software Engineering Training For Scientists

Yes, up at 7 am for a 3 mile run, a cold shower, then a breakfast of gruel followed by a full day of software engineering techniques … well, not quite: the software engineering part is true though. The Software … Continue reading

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How To Use Cloud Computing To Do Astronomy

This is a talk I gave jointly with my colleague Ewa Deelman (ISI, USC) at Caltech on May 9. I have had a number of requests to post the slides, so I will do so here:  Cloud IPAC May 9 gbb … Continue reading

Posted in Astronomy, Cloud computing, cyberinfrastructure, earthquake science, exoplanets, High performance computing, image mosaics, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, software engineering, software sustainability, TeraGrid, time series data, Transiting exoplanets, XSEDE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment