Twitter v LinkedIn updates.....

After an extensive research projects lasting 2 weeks I'm still searching for Fortran tweets with a technical bias - lot of chatter going on but not much content found so far. Which is not the same for other computer related info where the problem is filtering what does come through.

LinkedIn on the other hand, as mentioned in previous messages, does have an active Fortran forum with excellent technical (maybe too technical) traffic. The issue with LinkedIn is how you capture and store the information in a searchable manner.

So these two packages seem to work at the two ends of the extreme - Twitter has a rapid and fleeting flow of current ideas and info, not all necessarily appropriate or relevant, while LinkedIn acts as almost a living encyclopaedia, but feels a bit clumsy and slow.

The two together therefore provide a very powerful way of researching  topics. Twitter helps in quickly getting up the learning curve on a subject, and a way of filtering and ordering the current thinking and flow of data and ideas. Then if you get stuck or require a more in-depth analysis LinkedIn provides the infrastructure for more learned discussions. Currently I am in the process of doing just this with a couple of management topics to aid dissemination of knowledge through our organisation on 'innovation'.

This approach has certainly helped me so far more to report in future messages.......

The next challenge......

OK - I have the next revival project sorted!

I'ts a bit of back to the future related to the ROBFIT code myself and Bob Coldwell of the University of Florida physics department developed towards the back end of the 1980's.

So that's the 'back' bit!

After 20 years I have managed to resurrect the Fortran files - from 3 1/2" floppies - just finding a drive to read these was an exercise in itself. Thanks to mumbam for digging out an old work computer - though she did then go on about how the version of Excel loaded on the machine was far better than the modern one which was slightly worrying.

Anyway I have now extracted the files - cold sweat as I remember the work put into writing these. All seem fine - I now have a list of files that makefiles,

BKGFIT
FSPDIS
FSPFIT
RAWDD
STDIS
STGEN
VRMAIN
XCALIBER

now need to figure out what they do, maybe I should read the book :O. However, I have contacted Bob and have decided to load this version of the code onto a proper 'open' repository.

That's the 'future' bit.

I have been reliably informed by Bambofy (many thanks again) that 'github' is the place for this so my very next task is to figure out how to do that.

The journey goes back in time.....

Old - but - New!

What is new in the world of Fortran - other than there's a new version out or geekery around the code structure - what are people using it for?

How do you find out what's going on right now?

Have 'discovered' hastags and lists. That's Twitter speak ;)

I'm finding it a great medium for sharing and discussing ideas around innovation. Not entirely sure yet how effective this will be but these tools look like they will help. Also not sure it will work for Fortran  updating etc but have started to monitor the community! You have been warned.

My view on Twitter advantages so far are that it has a wide reach so you get input from a more diverse audience (some of which you may not want - but it certainly adds variety to the discussions). LinkedIn discussions - the other media I use - tend to be a bit insular - you have to be in the group to participate - which is sometimes a good thing don't get me wrong. Twitter therefore for me seems to be a bit more dynamic and feels more alive for ideas. Though it is early days for our #arctki forum! 


I was very sceptical before putting a bit of effort into Twitter - there is a lot of chatter. But if you tap into the right discussions I've found it to be great for discovering exactly what is happening in particular fields and quickly. The trick is to filter and organise the info so you don't get lost in the avalanche hence the # and lists.


Lets see what's going on in the Fortran world.....

So how do you do it.......?

Still no decision on previously described workings.

However, started to mull over a couple of things related to how to position development going forward;

1. I have a foot high pillar of 3 1/2inch floppy disc's with a load of old Fortran code on them. I'm sure its all really useful recyclable, reusable full documented well structured code by-the-way! But what a waste - from a scientific viewpoint I'm sure there is something of use, I have a complete spectral analysis code ROBFIT on there somewhere. Though it is a version that's 20 years old! What to do?
2. Everything, and I mean everything, is going 'social networking' mad. In fact I used the LinkedIn Fortran Programming Group to get going again on all things software. However, personally I find LinkedIn a bit of a 'static' medium, which is both a strength and a weakness. Its strength lies in it acting almost as a living (but passive) Google search - you can post questions and get learned responses without too much 'noise'. Its weakness, in my view, is you tend to end up in silo's on it. By that I mean if you start a discussion in a particular group then you may end up in a very 'deep' discussion thread but not necessarily a 'wide' discussion. Is there a better way of sharing with whole communities?

I'm sure someone has been through all this but I'm having fun going up the learning curve.

End of Phase 2.....what now?

So the final report has been issued on the second of the 'Fortran Revival' activities - phew! Further development, as detailed in earlier posts, will require a significant investment in a - I was going to say rewrite, but its more of a 'create from scratch again' type activity.

The only professional way forward in my view being development of a fully specified, documented, validated and verified code written in an environment that allows proper maintenance processes to be put in place.

There are some suggestions that we could go back to pure Excel calculations - noooooooo - read earlier blogs for my view on that one. Breaks out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.....images of monstrous spreadsheets comes to mind.....no wait.....that's the finance department!

Wonder what the next project could be......

Coding can be bad for your health!

So we have managed to now complete the assessment of all three codes.

Conclusion - don't try and programme anything complicated in Excel. I had concerns about using this environment to do the scientific calculations before we started this review exercise but now I am absolutely certain its a poor choice. The problem is its easy to get something going - and therein lies the mainissue. Unless your are very very very structured, particularly when writing VBA and using Excel  sheets to feed and record results, it is too easy to implement bad practice into the coding. Cutting and pasting data (was that to the right cell), macros (must have seemed like a good idea at the time), sheets for storing mass data (is there a limit in Excel?) are all inappropriate functionality for producing robust, verified and validated (in the proper sense) code.

We are simply going to have to rewrite the whole lot if we want to take these codes forward.

Just come across this quote from a 2002 paper on 'Spreadsheet Engineering' by


Thomas A. Grossman
School of Business and Management, University of San Francisco,
San Francisco, California, USA  94117-1045
tagrossman@usfca.edu


referenced from;
http://www.eusprig.org/best-practice.htm

which kind of sums up what should be done - ten years on!


"People have programmed computers for at least five decades. Over this time there has emerged a
field called “software engineering” that considers the myriad approaches people take—and
should take—when they write computer programs. This knowledge includes journal publications
describing theoretical research, laboratory experiments, field observations, and recommended
practices, as well as industry wisdom codified in books and computer magazines.

Since a spreadsheet is nothing more than a computer programming tool, one hopes that some of
the accumulated knowledge of software engineering is relevant to spreadsheets, and [Panko
2000a] recommends we start to adapt traditional programming techniques to spreadsheets.
[Rajalingham et al 2000] take a step in this direction with design recommendations and a formal
hierarchical tree technique. However, we are unaware of any systematic consideration of how
software engineering principles could apply to spreadsheets.

The application of software engineering principles to spreadsheets—call this “spreadsheet
engineering”—has the potential to increase the productivity of spreadsheet programmers,
decrease the frequency and severity of spreadsheet errors, enhance spreadsheet maintainability
over time, and actually be implemented by spreadsheet users. "

from a paper that's well worth a read.

Also this one on spreadsheet QA!


How do you know your spreadsheet is right?
Principles, Techniques and Practice of Spreadsheet Style
Philip L. Bewig — July 28, 200


http://www.eusprig.org/hdykysir.pdf

now I'm convinced its best to start again!

2 down 1 to go........

Second code review completed and documented.

On to the third code which is well structured much better documented!

A sample of the data input sheets for this code;

1. Button Title Datasheet Title
2. Parts Count Data Parts Count
3. Process Release Freq. Data 
4. Riser Release Frequencies 
5. Blowout Frequencies 
6. Special Frequencies 
7. Events Events
8. (Ignition Probabilities) 
9. (Escalation) n/a
10. Fire and Explosion Frequencies 
11. (Immediate Fatality Fractions) 
12. Population Population
13. Immediate Hydrocarbon Risk 
14. Travel Risk
15. Non-Hydrocarbon Risk 
16. Button Title Datasheet Title
17. Hydrocarbon QRA Results 
18. Summary QRA Results 

Just got to figure out how it all links together now!