From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2006-02-16T04:08:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Possible Ruby-centric NASA SBIR area

In article <dsvfnr$qqb$1@vilya.larc.nasa.gov>,
Bil Kleb  <Bil.Kleb@NASA.gov> wrote:
>I've been asked to write a small topic area
>for our SBIR (small business innovation research)
>program, which is basically a method to fun small
>businesses in $70k, $500k, and $2-3M chunks for
>promising research topics.  SBIR's premise doesn't fit
>too well with open source, but I thought it would
>be worth a try.  For more information about SBIRs, see
>http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov

I'm a little bit familiar with SBIRs; I was contracting for a company last 
summer and my position was funded by an SBIR.  My impression was that you had 
to be well-connected to get an SBIR ;-)

>
>The following is a selfish, Ruby-centric draft of a
>topic I threw together last night. Please pick it apart,
>add to it, ignore it, or whatever, but to have an impact
>on this go-around, I need your input by tomorrow morning
>(Eastern US time).
>
>  Title: Tools to Support Agile, Scientific Software Development
>
>  The aim of this "software craftsmanship" topic is
>  to solicit tools that make it easier for software developers
>  in general, and scientific programmers in particular, to adopt
>  agile software development practices.  Submissions will achieve
>  this by creating tools that are easier to learn and use than
>  the current Unix-style tool set, documenting these tools and
>  the practices they embody, and remaining readily extendable.
>  All tools should be portable across Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft
>  Windows, come with a complete set of automated unit tests, and
>  be implemented primarily in, or scriptable with, Ruby.
>
>  Examples of desired tools include testing frameworks for
>  Fortran 95, C, and C++ (unit, regression, performance, and
>  integration), CASE tools (Lakos analysis, calling trees, object
>  modeling and design, dependency analysis, cyclomatic complexity),
>  refactoring tools, API documentation tools (e.g., C++ and
>  Fortran 95 parsers for RDoc), a Textile-to-PDF converter
>  including embedded LaTeX mathematics and graphics or similar
>  way to get from simple markup to a typeset document, domain
>  specific languages, code release and request administration
>  systems, distributed continuous integration systems, templating
>  systems for Fortran 95, and novel systems for monitoring
>  simulations (e.g., Peep:A Network Auralizer or other ambient
>  means).

It'd be cool if you can get this.  I'm not sure what I'd add.  It would be nice 
to have an open source MatLab alternative;  it's a bit worrying that 
a proprietary product  is becoming  essential in a lot of research.


Phil