As you might know, my primary background stems from the field of
academia and research, but over the past years my interests have
focused increasingly on software engineering.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear to me today that if I had
known what I know today about software, I would without doubt have
been a much, much more productive researcher and graduate
student. It’s simply not possible today to carry out research without
programming. And research itself, to be considered valuable, requires
exactly the same qualitities demanded from modern software
engineering: repeatability, versioning, and safe explorations.
I’m convinced today that researchers would benefit if practicing
software engineers would give them some feedback on how they solve
these problems. And I’ve often pondered whether I should begin writing
on software engineering topics that I think could be relevant for
scientists and/or engineers, particularly in the academic field. It
could even form the basis for a series of blog posts.
I’d rather ask you, dear reader, for advice on this. **Would you like
me to begin a series of posts on software engineering topics relevant
to scientists and engineers in academia?** And if yes, which particular
subjects would you like to see me discuss?
I’m really, really looking forward to reading your comments on this matter.