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One big problem with software developed in academia is that there is almost no incentive for continued development and maintenance. Grants are time-limited, an
by fabian2k 9y ago
One big problem with software developed in academia is that there is almost no incentive for continued development and maintenance.
Grants are time-limited, and at some point usually the money for developing the software runs out. The PhD students working on the software move on to something else, and you have yet another abandoned piece of scientific software.
There are of course exceptions, but in general it's much harder to get money for maintaining and improving software over a longer timeframe than for building something new.
- roel_v 9y agoSoftware gets maintained (somewhat) by those who make a career out of it. Build something in your PhD, get a postdoc where you can add some more of your own things to it, and get funding for follow on work in which you get your own PhD's to work on it. That's the only model I've seen work, but it's usually very implicit, because when you get to the tenure track stage (or even beyond), you have an incentive to make it look like you're not yet again re-using that thing you were doing 10 years ago. So it's not called 'maintenance' or even 'upgrading' - you call it something else that sounds new, yet has enough links to the old thing to give you validation because people have heard of it, and in this way drag this mutant bastard code through 5 or 10 iterations over 25 years until your career is 'done' and you can finish off the last years in standby mode. This sounds negative but I don't mean it that way; it's just how it is, no judgement meant. But it's not something you really hear anyone teaching new PhD students as an option, and even if they would, it's highly uncertain and success depends on many factors out of your control. So I wouldn't call it a career path, or even viable career advice.
- Balgair 9y ago> Build something in your PhD, get a postdoc where you can add some more of your own things to it, and get funding for follow on work in which you get your own PhD's to work on it. Dear God how do you manage to do this?!