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The UCAR Software Engineering Assembly (SEA) exists to serve the interests of the software engineering community at UCAR and NCAR. All members are encouraged to interact with the SE community at UCAR, participate in communities of practice, attend our yearly Improving Scientific Software (ISS) conference, share tips and techniques, and engage in respectful and constructive discussion.

Anyone who is interested in software engineering activities at UCAR is welcome to join the SEA (including external collaborators). For those members who are SE staff at UCAR and NCAR, the SEA is also a vehicle to provide input to and drive dialog with senior management. As membership is not limited to a single lab or facility, the SEA is uniquely positioned to provide a holistic view of the perspective of SEs across the institution and the common challenges we face.

Latest Updates🔗︎

Presenting the ISS 2025 Conference Proceedings

The 2025 Improving Scientific Software Proceedings Committee is excited to present the cumulative efforts of the many authors who wrote and submitted a paper to our Conference Proceedings - which are now accessible via the ISS 2025 Proceedings Gallery.

This year, we decided to experiment with using Jupyter Notebooks as the paper format instead of plain-text papers, allowing for greater expressiveness and the potential for interactivity in papers. This decision required additional work on behalf of both the submitters and the editorial team; we thank both for their efforts and enthusiasm which have helped to make this process a success.

The ISS Conference Committee is in the initial planning stages for the 2026 Conference. Stay tuned for additional details later this year.

SEA Seminar: Code Review and Testing with Codee

The UCAR Software Engineering Assembly is hosting a virtual seminar and demonstration of the Codee code review and testing platform at 9 AM MT on Wednesday, September 24th. We will welcome developers from Codee, who will demonstrate the platform and answer any questions you have. Codee is intended to simplify and accelerate code review and testing for Fortran/C/C++ code. The platform finds opportunities to secure, correct, modernize, port and optimize software, enforcing coding guidelines, streamlining integration, and ensuring portability. For more information on Codee, see this brochure.

The developers intend to demonstrate Codee using a relevant Weather and Climate code. Please reach out to Brian Vanderwende by September 2nd if you would like to provide your code base for the demonstration. Doing so would also give you a direct opportunity to see how Codee might apply to your code development workflow.

Use this event link to add the seminar to your Google Calendar.

Help provide ideas for future SEA events

The UCAR SEA would like your input on desired presenters and/or topics of interest for our event calendar for the rest of the 2025 calendar year. We have funds for FY2025 that we can use to invite (domestic) speakers, so we encourage you to be aspirational in your suggestions. We are open to any type of relevant event you'd like to suggest, but some examples include:

  • One-hour invited seminar talks
  • 1+ hour tutorials
  • Multi-day workshops

The SEA Committee will coordinate the logistics of funding the invited presented and advertising the event, and we can also organize times to meet with the presenter if that is of interest.

To submit your input, please fill out this brief 3-question survey. Thank you!

ISS 2025 Slides, Recordings, and Post-Conference Survey

The 2025 Improving Scientific Software Conference Committee would like to thank all presenters and attendees for making this year's Conference a success. We were happy to see valuable contributions from many different institutions and areas of study, as well as good discussion during the networking events and socials. If you registered for the conference, you should have received a post-conference survey. This survey will remain open until 10 May 2025, should you wish to provide us with feedback.

We have also posted the slides and recordings from each presentation and tutorial on the Online Conference Program. These materials are available to all.

In-person registration is now closed for ISS 2025

Registration for in-person attendance has now closed for this year's ISS Conference. Thank you to all who have signed up to join us in Boulder next month; we look forward to seeing you! If you have not yet registered but would still like to attend, virtual registration will remain open until the end of the day on April 3rd.

See our ISS 2025 Conference Site for more information about registration and our virtual conference program for a listing of all planned talks, tutorials, and events.

ISS 2025: Program and registration are available now

The online program is now available for the 2025 Improving Scientific Software Conference. Our 4-day program includes a number of talks and two tutorials, along with two keynote presentations (details to be announced soon). We would like to thank all who submitted an abstract to this year's event!

Remember that registration is open now for the conference, which will take place April 7-10, 2025 in Boulder, CO and virtually. In-person registration closes on Friday, March 21, so make sure you register soon if you plan to join us in Boulder. Virtual registration will close on April 3. We have also extended the reduced-rate conference hotel booking deadline to March 19th. For more information along with the link to the registration portal, visit the ISS 2025 website.

Registration is now open for ISS 2025 Conference

The Improving Scientific Software (ISS) Conference committee is pleased to announce that registration is now open for our 2025 Conference, taking place April 7-10 in Boulder, Colorado. ISS brings together software engineers, scientists, developers - any individuals with an interest in scientific software design - to share novel experiences and best practices, develop connections across divisions and institutions, and advance our community.

Participants may register either for in-person or virtual attendance. In-person registration will close on March 21st, while virtual registration will close on April 3rd. For more information and the link to the registration page, see the ISS 2025 Conference website.

ISS 2025 Abstract Submission Deadline Extended to Jan 30

The abstract submission deadline for the annual Improving Scientific Software Conference, which will take place April 7-10, 2025 in Boulder, CO and virtually, has been extended to 5 PM MT on Thursday, January 30. Thank you to all who have already submitted an abstract. The theme of ISS 2025 is From Legacy to Leading-Edge: Transforming Software Design in Science to Meet Tomorrow’s Challenges, a focus which feels more relevant to us than ever. We are accepting submissions for talks, as well as tutorial and panel sessions.

As a reminder - travel and registration support will be available for a select number of accepted student (undergraduate and graduate) submissions. For more details on the Conference, abstract submission, and student travel support, please visit our conference website.

SEA Panel Discussion on Language Interoperability

The UCAR Software Engineering Assembly will hold a panel of lightning talks followed by a discussion on language interoperability at 3 PM MT on Wednesday February 26, 2025.

The discussion can include more traditional Fortran-C/C++ interoperability, but we're especially interested in interoperability of compiled codes with interpreted languages such as Python and Julia. For example, the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) team is considering building out capabilities to facilitate the coupling of model components written in Python or Julia with those in Fortran, C and C++.

We currently have the following panel speakers, who will present ~5 minute lightning talks on related experiences and perspectives:

  • Bill Sacks - thoughts on prospective ESMF capabilities to facilitate the coupling of model components written in Python and Julia with C/C++/Fortran code
  • Kyle Shores - team maintains a lot of C++ code with C interface exposed for Fortran and Python interoperability
  • Orhan Eroglu - GeoCAT experiences leveraging Python-Fortran (via f2py) and Python-C++ (via Cython) interoperability

There is still room for 1-2 more panelists, so please reach out to the SEA committee if you may be interested. If you are NCAR/UCAR staff, you can use this calendar link to save this event. If you are external to the organization but wish to attend, contact our admin team for a registration link.

Support Available for Students with Submissions to ISS 2025

Abstract submission is open until January 24, 2025 for the annual Improving Scientific Software Conference, which will take place April 7-10, 2025 in Boulder, CO and virtually. The theme of ISS 2025 is From Legacy to Leading-Edge: Transforming Software Design in Science to Meet Tomorrow’s Challenges. We are accepting submissions for talks, as well as tutorial and panel sessions.

The ISS Committee is pleased to announce that travel and registration support will be available for a select number of accepted student (undergraduate and graduate) submissions. For more details on the Conference, abstract submission, and student travel support, please visit our conference website.