Virtual instruments -- A Los Alamos experiment

Conference · Sun Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1995

OSTI ID:106640

Khalsa, N S

Changing priorities, shrinking budgets, reduced personnel, and collapsed time schedules in post-Cold War Los Alamos have forced project managers to face software ``time-to-market`` issues similar to their commercial counterparts. Programs that are funded over a period of several years are now the exception rather than the norm. Projects are much more diverse and have more clearly defined goals and termination points compared with the previous objective of incremental improvements through a series of developmental efforts. Software development and support for such projects has to be less costly than before, since the software is a ``throwaway`` when the project is over. The authors came up with a wish list for a software development system that would meet their needs. The list includes: (1) higher productivity, faster turnaround than the present approach of starting from scratch in C or FORTRAN; (2) flexibility--able to make moderate changes in program flow without significant setbacks in the development schedule; (3) high-level focus--spending more time on the algorithms and less time on GUI or driver issues; (4) greater code reusability, and good mechanisms for documenting code flow and code modifications; (5) multiplatform implementations--IBM-PC, Sun, Mac, not so much for code porting but for user training issues; (6) reasonable code execution speeds--able to keep up with data acquisition rates required for the project; (7) ability to link-in external code when necessary; (8) sufficient debugging tools; (9) satisfactory product support and response times to questions (hours, not days); and (10) vital life signs from the vendor`s R and D department--upgrades, bug fixes, enhancements, response to customer feedback.

• Research Organization: EG and G Energy Measurements, Inc., Los Alamos, NM (United States). Los Alamos Operations
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC08-93NV11265
• OSTI ID: 106640
• Report Number(s): EGG-11265-5031; CONF-9505286-1; ON: DE96000190; TRN: AHC29525%%141
• Resource Relation: Conference: Digital signal processing conference and exposition, San Jose, CA (United States), 15-19 May 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 MATHEMATICS
COMPUTERS
INFORMATION SCIENCE
MANAGEMENT
LAW
MISCELLANEOUS
44 INSTRUMENTATION
INCLUDING NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE DETECTORS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEMS
CONTROL SYSTEMS
COMPUTER CODES
PROGRAMMING
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
PERFORMANCE TESTING
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTER GRAPHICS