Project of a PRISM funded a Software Engineer on strengthening the maintenance aspects of the computational fluid dynamics software Nektar++

PRISM has recently funded a Software Engineer (Christian Jane) for three months. This short term project had the objective of strengthening the maintenance/robustness aspects of the computational fluid dynamics software Nektar++, focusing on addressing some of the outstanding software-related issues present in the current version of the code.

During this time, Christian has been integrated into the Nektar++ community and has been exposed to the complete continuous integration process. The tasks undertaken included fixing existing bugs reported by the broader Nektar++ community and implementing new features, both individually and in a cooperative manner with other team members. At the same time, he participated in reviewing and merging contributions and maintaining the integrity of the code throughout the weekly development team meetings.

This experience has provided Christian with a valuable experience since he has been able to go a step further from what one does during their studies and participate in a large-scale real-world software engineering project. He has learnt about current C++ practices for code development and developed valuable skills in debugging and testing complex object-oriented codes across a range of operating systems.

Christian is now beginning a PhD project in the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London in the area of modelling wind farms.