Just Enough Software Engineering for Domain Scientists in Research Software Development

For domain science researchers, software frequently acts as a tool to accelerate and enhance their research, opening up possibilities that were previously unimaginable. Often cases, it is the domain scientists who know about programming that take the task of software development. Lacking adequate training in software engineering, software development can become a daunting challenge. Thus, we present in this paper some widely-adopted and most effective software engineering practices a domain scientist who finds themselves developing software may need, all in one place. From basic Git usage to software testing and code specification, the information presented here should help any domain scientist to develop the best software they can, while spending as little time, effort, and money along the way as possible. We hope this information will prove beneficial to domain researchers involved in software development, empowering them to improve the reliability and maintainability of well-crafted research software.