COMODI: GUIDELINES FOR A COMPONENT-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING

The present work discusses the aspects pertaining to the change of scientiflc software development practices towards the paradigm of component- based programming (1). It summarizes the symptoms that indicate the ne- cessity of a renewal in computational sciences. The main ingredients for the solution are identifled and a vision on how efiective code sharing can afiect future scientiflc research is presented. Starting from the premises of today's scientiflc software development a set of requirements for the framework, com- ponent descriptor language, component wiring and component repository are formulated. We claim that the community rather needs a useful tool even if of restricted use than an ultimate high-tech solution that will remain unac- cessible to a community not willing to change overnight those programming practices it has been accustomed to for decades.