From c1663cf8ae7daff9817c4add69d32f328c380062 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Druskat, Stephan" Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 10:12:47 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 1/6] Split Maintenance RSE role into Maintenance RSEs and Legacy RSEs --- competencies.md | 11 +++++++++-- contributors.yml | 10 ++++++++++ 2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/competencies.md b/competencies.md index 73483070..cdcb5b17 100644 --- a/competencies.md +++ b/competencies.md @@ -1056,8 +1056,15 @@ As an interface between the researchers and the infrastructure, they take care o The constantly evolving software environment can hinder or prevent reproducibility. In this changing environment, a significant amount of effort in (research) software development needs to be spent on maintenance to ensure that software remains useful or even installable. -With regard to which additional competency is required, -these are people having experience with software stacks that are not part of the general curricula any more (e.g., \gls{COBOL} or \gls{Fortran}). +Maintenance RSEs are mainly concerned with change management for code and documentation, +and working with the community to safeguard usability and adaptability. + +#### Legacy RSEs +Research software may be used and evolved over generations of research without change management or governance processes, +which may lead to the emergence of legacy code that is actively used. +To safeguard continued usability and adoption, +these RSEs have experience in working with legacy code, +and are competent in the application of software stacks that are not part of the general curricula any more (e.g., \gls{COBOL} or \gls{Fortran}). #### HPC-RSE diff --git a/contributors.yml b/contributors.yml index b1afc123..24f7bcaf 100644 --- a/contributors.yml +++ b/contributors.yml @@ -213,6 +213,16 @@ authors: orcid: 0000-0002-9935-4428 email: g.juckeland@hzdr.de + - author: "Stephan Druskat" + firstName: Stephan + lastName: Druskat + initials: SD + affiliations: + - German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute for Software Technology, Berlin, Germany + - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Computer Science, Berlin, Germany + orcid: 0000-0003-4925-7248 + email: stephan.druskat@dlr.de + # please use the following author template (all fields are optional): # - author: "F. D. C. Willard, Jr." From 354a299e28892111080fc3e21ee48fc82098c111 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Druskat, Stephan" Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 10:15:34 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 2/6] Add governance skill --- competencies.md | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/competencies.md b/competencies.md index cdcb5b17..3d5d4d8a 100644 --- a/competencies.md +++ b/competencies.md @@ -1058,6 +1058,8 @@ In this changing environment, a significant amount of effort in (research) softw needs to be spent on maintenance to ensure that software remains useful or even installable. Maintenance RSEs are mainly concerned with change management for code and documentation, and working with the community to safeguard usability and adaptability. +They have additional competence in the governance of software projects, +and scalable decision-making processes. #### Legacy RSEs Research software may be used and evolved over generations of research without change management or governance processes, From d22d50f4a5b27ea869109ea3a864eea23244abe9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Druskat, Stephan" Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2023 11:12:00 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 3/6] Make scalable a word --- .github/spellignore.txt | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) diff --git a/.github/spellignore.txt b/.github/spellignore.txt index 888464a3..8952330d 100644 --- a/.github/spellignore.txt +++ b/.github/spellignore.txt @@ -137,6 +137,7 @@ RSE RSE's rse-specialisations RTPs +scalable scipy SeniorCC SRU From 4964a74b2598a4136cde9d6045b1400eb5141970 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Druskat, Stephan" Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2024 16:11:07 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 4/6] Sharpen the context of Legacy RSE role --- competencies.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/competencies.md b/competencies.md index 054ff218..4bc0dcaf 100644 --- a/competencies.md +++ b/competencies.md @@ -1091,8 +1091,8 @@ They have additional competence in the governance of software projects, and scalable decision-making processes. #### Legacy RSEs -Research software may be used and evolved over generations of research without change management or governance processes, -which may lead to the emergence of legacy code that is actively used. +Research software may be used and evolved over generations of research without change management or governance processes, while software ecosystems (e.g., programming languages, frameworks, operating systems) constantly evolve. +This may lead to the emergence of legacy code that is actively used. To safeguard continued usability and adoption, these RSEs have experience in working with legacy code, and are competent in the application of software stacks that are not part of the general curricula any more (e.g., \gls{COBOL} or \gls{Fortran}). From 69ff932e68e64ff30caee7e439cc36687b79ac07 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Druskat, Stephan" Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2024 16:27:06 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 5/6] Redistribute Maintenance RSE tasks and skills under PM/CM RSE --- competencies.md | 15 +++++---------- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) diff --git a/competencies.md b/competencies.md index 4bc0dcaf..c25fdb8a 100644 --- a/competencies.md +++ b/competencies.md @@ -1029,7 +1029,11 @@ Like the Data-focused RSE, they have a deep understanding of \ac{RDM} topics. #### Project/community manager RSEs When research software projects become larger, they need someone who manages -processes and people. This gap can be filled by people who invest in the (\gls{PM}), (\gls{USERS}), and (\gls{TEAM}) skills, as exemplified in @subsec:examplecareer. +processes and people. +In practice, this concerns change management for code and documentation +and community work to safeguard usability and adaptability, +but also handling project governance and scalable decision-making processes. +This gap can be filled by people who invest in the (\gls{PM}), (\gls{USERS}), and (\gls{TEAM}) skills, as exemplified in @subsec:examplecareer. Building a community around a research project is an important building block in building sustainable software [@Segal2009], so these RSEs play an important role, even if they do not necessarily touch much of the code themselves. @@ -1081,15 +1085,6 @@ on the other hand knowledge about setup and configuration of particular server s e.g., setup of virtual machines on hypervisors or the planning and setup of compute server clusters for \ac{ML}. As an interface between the researchers and the infrastructure, they take care of user management, access permissions, and configuration of required services. -#### Maintenance RSEs -The constantly evolving software environment can hinder or prevent reproducibility. -In this changing environment, a significant amount of effort in (research) software development -needs to be spent on maintenance to ensure that software remains useful or even installable. -Maintenance RSEs are mainly concerned with change management for code and documentation, -and working with the community to safeguard usability and adaptability. -They have additional competence in the governance of software projects, -and scalable decision-making processes. - #### Legacy RSEs Research software may be used and evolved over generations of research without change management or governance processes, while software ecosystems (e.g., programming languages, frameworks, operating systems) constantly evolve. This may lead to the emergence of legacy code that is actively used. From 4385e027f9dd7161fba9f9206dedb4ae5a30b433 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: CaptainSifff Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 13:27:09 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 6/6] Update competencies.md Co-authored-by: Stephan Druskat --- competencies.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/competencies.md b/competencies.md index c25fdb8a..7e62c44d 100644 --- a/competencies.md +++ b/competencies.md @@ -1090,7 +1090,7 @@ Research software may be used and evolved over generations of research without c This may lead to the emergence of legacy code that is actively used. To safeguard continued usability and adoption, these RSEs have experience in working with legacy code, -and are competent in the application of software stacks that are not part of the general curricula any more (e.g., \gls{COBOL} or \gls{Fortran}). +and are competent in the application of software stacks that are no longer part of the general curricula (e.g., \gls{COBOL} or \gls{Fortran}). #### HPC-RSE