(Position Paper) Applying Software Engineering Methods and Tools to CSE Research Projects

The need for applications that are developed especially for Computational Science and Engineering ( CSE) has been growing rapidly in the recent years. These applications are often a prerequisite for research and have to be evolved and maintained for considerable periods of time. However, CSE researchers have traditionally put focus on achieving better computational performance and results rather than the software's comprehensibility, maintainability and extensibility. This paper first presents two case studies on two different CSE research projects, where common and specific problems are identified. Second we propose solutions that intend to apply software engineering methodologies and tools to improve the CSE research software development. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.