There are a number of bloggers and podcasters who frequently and thoughtfully discuss issues related to "better scientific software". You may want to follow some of them.
Daniel S. Katz's Blog
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Blog Name | Daniel S. Katz's Blog |
| Website | https://danielskatzblog.wordpress.com/ |
| Focus | Software Publishing and Citation, Strategies for More Effective Teams, Software Process Improvement |
From his online biography: Dan Katz is Assistant Director for Scientific Software and Applications at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Research Associate Professor in Computer Science (CS), Research Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Research Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences (iSchool), and Faculty Affiliate in Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dan's interest is in the development and use of advanced cyberinfrastructure to solve challenging problems at multiple scales. His technical research interests are in applications, algorithms, fault tolerance, and programming in parallel and distributed computing, including HPC, Grid, Cloud, etc. He is also interested in policy issues, including citation and credit mechanisms and practices associated with software and data, organization and community practices for collaboration, and career paths for computing researchers.
Dan's blog postings are most often about software sustainability, software citation and publishing, and related issues. He posts irregularly, averaging about once every two months.
Konrad Hinsen's Blog
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Blog Name | Konrad Hinsen's Blog |
| Website | http://blog.khinsen.net/ |
| Focus | Reproducibility, Software Process Improvement |
Konrad Hinsen is a researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He works at the Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire in Orléans and as an associate researcher at the Synchrotron SOLEIL.
Konrad's blog postings are often about reproducibility in research and software sustainability, and related issues. He posts irregularly, averaging once every 1.5 months.
Methods and Tools Editor Blog
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Blog Name | Methods and Tools Editor Blog |
| Website | http://blog.martinig.ch/ |
| Focus | Software Engineering |
Methods and Tools is a "free software development e-magazine for developers, testers, and project managers."
This publication is more about general software engineering than specific to scientific software. The monthly "Software Development Linkopedia" article typically provides pointers to more than a dozen different resources (other web content, videos, and tools) and invariably, some of them will be relevant and interesting to scientific software developers.
Doctor McKayla
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Blog Name | Doctor McKayla |
| Website | https://www.michaelagreiler.com/all-posts/ |
| Podcast Name | Software Engineering Unlocked |
| Website | https://www.software-engineering-unlocked.com/ |
| Focus | Software Engineering, Code Review |
Michaela Greiler is a consultant who provides training/coaching on software development practices, especially code review. In addition to her blog, she has a newsletter, a podcast, a YouTube channel, and is writing a book on code review. She posts regularly to both the blog and the podcast.
Developer Stories
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Podcast Name | Developer Stories |
| Website | https://rseng.github.io/devstories/ |
| Focus | This podcast aims to look “Behind the Scenes of Tech’s Passion Projects and People.” We want to know your developer story, what you have built, and why. |
This podcast, launched by Vanessa Sochat, interviews developers of scientific software. It was originally called "RSE Stories", but has been rebranded to be more inclusive.
Code for Thought
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Podcast Name | Code for Thought |
| Website | https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/ |
| Focus | "software engineering, research, and anything in between" |
Another podcast originating in the research software engineering community.
Top 10 Podcasts on Software and Open Research
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Website | https://www.software.ac.uk/blog/2020-11-27-top-10-podcasts-software-and-open-research |
| Focus | A selection of ten podcasts on software and open research topics |
This is a meta-recommendation, rather than trying to capture all ten (plus two honorable mentions) here. The post was published in November 2020 by Patricia Herterich and Sarah Gibson in honor of the UK Software Sustainability Institute's tenth anniversary.
Software Sustainability Institute
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Blog Name | Software and research: the Institute's Blog |
| Website | https://www.software.ac.uk/blog |
| Focus | Activities of the Software Sustainability Institute |
The Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) is a primary nexus of activity around better scientific software in the UK. The blog is wide-ranging, but often includes the products of "speed blogging" activities at various conferences and workshops, reports from SSI Fellows, and many other topics.
Joel on Software
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Blog Name | Joel on Software |
| Website | https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ |
| Focus | Software development, management, and the Internet |
Joel Spolsky has been involved in products such as FogBugz, Trello, Glitch, and Stack Overflow. Though not a scientific software developer, he has a blog dating back to 2000 that includes many insightful articles about software development which are as useful for scientific software developers as others. Though he is (semi-?) retired and not posting very often these days, many of his more than 1,000 past blog posts offer observations and insights which are as relevant today as when he originally wrote them.
Whom do you follow?
Contribute this article by leaving a comment to let us know bloggers and podcasts you follow regularly on topics related to better scientific software.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the blogs and podcasts above are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of editors or sponsors of the BSSw.io site.
