At least in the previous decade, and even at that time in other parts of UK science, I don't think there was a "software priesthood". It probably invaded astro

At least in the previous decade, and even at that time in other parts of UK science, I don't think there was a "software priesthood". It probably invaded astronomy and HEP earlier than elsewhere, and to some extent now resides in Research Software Engineering. The first OS on the nuclear structure interactive graphics system was written by a Birmingham physicist, for instance. I wrote analysis software as necessary (and read up on software engineering as well as the other techniques needed for the research, like electronics and high vacuum systems). The UK Computational Computing Projects were run by scientists who did the work, and you could get Fellow of the Royal Society-level help (though the two mainstays of CCP4 only got the title much later). I don't know where this free software elitism is prevalent, as someone involved with it in research since before the term became necessary. I could appreciate the UHH, by the way, from a time when Unix was largely not free software.