One of the roles of Software Outlook is to promote best practice in software engineering methodologies. Identifying what makes “high-quality software for researchers” will be part of this process. As part of this work package, we will identify existing best practice guidance and promote it to CCP and HEC developers. Additionally, with the help of our Hartree Centre colleagues, we will develop a series of articles on best practice.

Publications

• Version Control Systems: Overview and Best Practices, B. Mummery, Technical Report DL-TR-2020-003, 2020 Citation Details

• Container technologies and their attributes, C. Dearden, Technical Report DL-TR-2020-002, 2020 Citation Details
  • Please also view our Code Containerisation page for further information.

• Documentation Tools: Overview and Best Practices, B. Mummery, Technical Report DL-TR-2020-004, 2020 Citation Details
  • Please also view our Documentation Tools page for further information.

• CI/CD – Continuous Integration, Deployment and Delivery: Overview and Best Practices, B. Mummery, Technical Report DL-TR-2020-005, 2020 Citation Details

• Testing: Overview and Best Practices, B. Mummery, Technical Report DL-TR-2021-002, 2021 Citation Details

Software Sustainability Institute

The Software Sustainability Institute has additional guidance related to software engineering development and best practices. Here we highlight a few of their guides but recommend that the full list on the Software Sustainability Institute’s website is checked for the most up-to-date guides.

• Choosing an open-source license
• Approaches to software sustainability
• How to cite and describe software
• Best practice for using cloud in research
• Software deposit guidance
• Introduction to GitHub for beginners