2007 GSA Denver Annual Meeting (28–31 October 2007)

Paper No. 3
Presentation Time: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM

LESSONS IN SOFTWARE REUSE FOR EARTH SCIENCE PROJECTS


BERTOLLI, Angelo1, MARSHALL, James J.1, DOWNS, Robert R.2, FALKE, Stefan3, GERARD, Ryan1, HUSAR, Rudolf3, JASMIN, Tommy4, LYNNES, Christopher5 and WOLFE, Robert E.1, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd, Greenbelt, MD 20771, (2)Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University, 202 Geoscience, 61 Route 9W - PO Box 1000, Palisades, NY 10964, (3)Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, (4)Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin, 1225 W. Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706, (5)Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd, Greenbelt, MD 20771, angelo.bertolli@nasa.gov

Software reuse provides many benefits, most notably saving time, saving money, and ensuring reliability. The Earth science community can benefit by sharing software assets such as code, applications, documentation, and standards. However, there are also challenges involved in reusing software, and these barriers must be identified and broken down in order to encourage more systematic software reuse. The NASA Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Software Reuse Working Group has been chartered to oversee the process that will maximize the reuse of potential software components.

As part of this work, we have collected case studies from members of the ESDS Software Reuse Working Group about their experiences in software reuse. This poster will present information from four such case studies, including a comparison of the common issues they faced and how those issues were resolved. The presentation will examine some of the lessons learned by these projects, how they can be used to improve future software reuse efforts, and include a summary of the benefits realized by these projects.