Spencer Smith
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a documentation and development methodology to facilitate the certification of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) software that is produced by professional end user developers to solve mathematical models of physical systems. To study the problems faced during quality assurance and certification activities, a case study was performed on legacy software used by a nuclear power generating company for safety analysis in a nuclear reactor. Although no errors were uncovered in the code, the documentation still needed significant updating for certification, since its was incomplete and inconsistent. During the case study, 27 issues were found with the documentation. This work proposes improvements to the case study software and other CSE software via a new template for the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) that clearly and sufficiently states the requirements, while satisfying the desired qualities for a good SRS. For developing the design and implementation, this paper suggests Literate Programming (LP) as an alternative to traditional structured programming. Literate Programming documents the numerical algorithms and the logic behind the development and the code together in the same document, the Literate Programmer's Manual (LPM). The LPM is developed in connection with the SRS. The explicit traceability between the theory, numerical algorithms and implementation (code), facilitates completeness and consistency, and simplifies the process of verification and the associated certification.
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Index Terms
- Document driven certification of computational science and engineering software
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Reviews
Angelica de Antonio
This paper proposes a very specific development and documentation methodology to be used for software produced by professional end-user developers to solve mathematical models of physical systems (the so-called computational science and engineering (CSE) software). This methodology combines the use of a new template for the software requirements specification (SRS) (in fact, it is an adaptation from a previous template proposed by one of the authors and other researchers for engineering computation, with a few additional sections) and the application of literate programming in the design and implementation stages. Literate programming is an approach proposed by Donald Knuth back in the early '90s that suggests documenting design together with the code, so that the logic and concepts behind each implemented algorithm are made explicit and understandable to the human reader. Code is decomposed into an interconnected web of smaller chunks, and each chunk is explicitly connected to the SRS. The final goal is to facilitate quality assurance and certification activities by providing high-quality documentation that simplifies checking completeness, correctness, and other desired properties, and that is capable of addressing changes in the underlying mathematical model or the numerical techniques employed, given that the connection among the model and its implementation is made apparent. The authors applied this methodology in a case study in the domain of nuclear power plant safety. Legacy software for thermal analysis was redeveloped and some excerpts from the generated documentation are used as examples throughout the paper. This approach allowed the detection of quite a few issues in the original documentation that could have been avoided by following the proposed methodology. Given the specificity of the software development context that is addressed (CSE software under strict certification requirements), this paper might be of practical interest to a limited audience. Additional details about the SRS template and the case study products can be found in a master's thesis [1], which is freely available online, allowing interested readers to explore further. Online Computing Reviews Service
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