Hi Peter,

Thanks for the feedback.  You are correct that there are other sites where someone can post a paid project (Freelancer comes to mind.)   You could also write in 'unpaid' for the compensation field.  I think the problem with doing what you suggest is that you're advertising to the wrong people.   Developers go to Freelancer to find paid gigs.  If they are looking for volunteer opportunities they go to ... hopefully my program :)  ( or github, sourceforge, a hack-a-thon, ect.)    

What makes my program better than the others?  I'm specifically targeting academic research with the goal of facilitating source code as a research object.  There's a grassroots movement trying to make research sourcecode citable in peer-reviewed journals.  It's slow going, and yes, there are a lot of hurdles -- academia is notorious for resisting change.  But, eventually we'll get there.  From a reproducibility standpoint,  it just makes sense to be able to cite the sourcecode you used in your methods.  I can talk more about that if you'd like.  

But, first steps first, I need to show that researchers are interested in collaborating, which brings me to my next point.  If you'd like to move forward with your compiler project, I could certainly pitch it to some of my developers.  See if anyone is interested.  Let me know for certain though.   There is nothing worse than pitching a project that doesn't actually exist.   My e-mail address is [email protected]

All that said, yes I do like to cooperate! I recently started my own company with the intention to combine scientific research with the development of software. It is called:  Future Life Researc with the motto: "innovation for the unknown". Please provide me with some more information.

Seems to be an interesting possibility. Can you be more specific? For example, would such software developers be from small companies (SBA size), government, international? What kinds of projects do you envision? In what parts of the USA or abroad would these be located?

Quite an interesting proposition.  As a professional programmer, with time on my hands (don't tell the boss :-) such a thing would be of interest - but it would have to be open source, and I'd have to get "permission" from my employer.  

Having said that, the drawback I see is that while I can sling code with the best of them (IMHO), I know next to nothing (or in some cases less than nothing) about the fields of quantum chemistry, physics, seismology, etc (pick a science) - so the specifications from said researcher would have to be very specific, and they would have to provide a way to verify that what I write solves what they are designing.  This tends to be why researchers write their own code.  I'm more than willing to take an existing, aging Fortran code and either modernize it (Fortran9x) or translate it to C - as I have a known starting place, can check my results, and might actually be able to generate significantly more efficient software.

You make a very important set of points! This is what makes programming so intellectually difficult, separating programmers from mere coders. Many large scale 'aging' FORTRAN and COBOL programs were, since they were built out of necessity by good scientists (e.g. our national labs etc.), never made to be extendable, maintainable, reconfigurable, interoperable (e.g. legacy super computers to distributed microprocessors...), sustainable nor 'modernized.' Consider, for example, over a million lines of FORTRAN built by very smart plasma physicists to compute large scale particle in cell (PIC) applications, plasma physics problems, on a large high speed Cray super computer! The code would be built out of necessity for 'that' project or than machine in over a million lines of 'straight' FORTRAN code (similar examples exist in business ... COBOL or C). Now comes the day where that asset needs to be 'reused' to solve a different set of plasma physics problems running on different kinds of platforms. Where is the perfective or adaptive maintenance? How, when and where can this asset be made ready to be integrated into a different scientific/engineering system? Think about, what I have  talked about before, its technology readiness!!! Clearly it is nowhere ready to be TR!! Moreover, where was the 'bounded rationality' of their thinking? This, my remote colleague is further detail about which you are introducing key points. Right?

What say you? Let's her from others. This is important and wide spread.

Hey all,

Thanks for responding.  I'm excited about the interest.  Yes, Nicolet & Jerry, I would love to have you on board as some interested programmers.   Let me give some more information and try to answer your questions.  You can also check out our website at www.sciencesolved.com which is still being built out.  If you're still interested,  send me an e-mail at [email protected]

Eventually, the plan is to have the website act similar to a job posting board where researchers can post the general details of a project and interested programmers can browse said projects and contact the owner for more information.  Since this is a pilot and I'm trying to gauge whether this will work,  I'm  personally matching people and monitoring progress to see what works, what doesn't, and what needs to improve.    

What's actually surprising to me is that it is much easier to recruit a programmer than it is to recruit researchers.  Researchers always seem to come up with a reason why it won't work and immediately dismiss the idea,  whereas the average programmers response is 'you need help with a science research project? Sign me up!'    Just something I've noticed :)   Anyway, as I mentioned in the original question, I'm looking for science researchers willing to take a chance and work with a programmer to make their lives easier.  David, if you're interested, e-mail me too :)

To answer some specific questions.  David, I don't put limitations on the backgrounds of my programmers.  They can come from small businesses, academia, freelancers, anywhere.  That being said, I'm focusing on programmers interested in open source projects (I imagine most projects will be open sourced at some point), and I'm focusing more on recruiting professional programmers over students.  Personally, I have a lot of ties to programmers in the financial trading industry, which is good because these guys spend their days trying to write code that executes on the nanosecond level -- something that's an asset to a computational researcher who can't afford to spend lots of grant money on super computer processing time.  But, as I mentioned earlier, I think it would be dumb to limit my programmers to those of a specific background.

Jerry,  it's perfectly fine if you don't have a background in a specific science field.  Actually, that's probably something I should stress to researchers: in exchange for getting free code, they must teach the programmer about their project and field.  I see this more as a collaboration where each party shares knowledge and teaches the other.  In fact, I have a number of programmers that have specifically requested life science projects, and another one that would love to work with someone in the semi-conductor field.

The types of projects can vary substantially.  Some are things that a programmer can complete in a few days,  others can take significant amounts of time.   I have a few programmers that are on non-compete agreements (meaning they are paid to not work for a competitor.  Those are the ones who are begging me for a project simply because they are bored).   Some previous examples have been a visualization suite which allows you to predict/view how the orbital of satellites change under various environments, and an online app that describes the number of rare codons in a genetic sequences.   When you describe the project on the website, you don't HAVE to give details, just enough information to get the general idea across. 

One last thing before I go.  I'm running the project as a "low-profit LLC" aka L3C.  It's a special designation in Illinois. Originally, we planned on running this project as a non-profit.  Ultimately, we went with the L3C because was 1) we wanted the project to be sustainable without donations and 2) we wanted the ability to merge with a larger entity such as sourceforge or github or dryad -- something with a similar mission.  It's easy to buy/merge another company,  much more difficult to buy/merge a non-profit.   Posting projects and connecting researchers will always be free.  We're planning on making our money the same way LinkedIn does -- through advertising, memberships, and recruiting.  Let me know if there's more I can answer.

Peter,   I've not forgotten about you.

I want to make certain I'm understanding your post.   You already have code that does what you want it to do.  You're looking for a programmer who has a connection within the OpenRISC project who can get a more official version of your code to be standard in the project.   Correct?

Okay,  I put out a request, but I don't think I have anyone who is specifically tied to the OpenRISC project.  But, as I grow my network, I may meet someone who fits your requirement.  Would you like me to send them your way?  If so,  send me an e-mail ([email protected]  or [email protected]) and I will make certain to pin your project request.

Nicolet,

Is it the Future of Life Institute?  Or, Future of Life Research.  I was having trouble finding you via a google search.   Regardless,  even though I expect most of the projects to be unpaid and open source,  I do have the option for a researcher to post a paid project or a non-open source project.  Though I do feel that these will be in the minority of projects.   Still,  take a look at my description of the project and the website www.sciencesolved.com   If you're still interested in participating, send me an e-mail at [email protected] and I will sign you up.  

Hi Heather, sorry for the confusion: I'm an (applied) scientist and not a programmer. But my little company intends to develop tools and I would love to work with a programmer. My website is very basic yet but will be more elaborated in time: it is Future Life Research and I added a link. Best, N.

www.futureliferesearch.com

When you write your own code you get the feedback that not only tells  you the code is OK but also that your ideas are plausible.  It is a little like letting some one else write  notes on your project because they are better at writing.  The ability to write code is widespread and other than various niceties (reuse, specialist code , performance) most people can do it. The extra you gain doing it yourself is significant.  

(I am suggesting this as a developer / software engineer  for the last 35 years - not as someone who just  wrote their own code for a project)

I am interested in volunteering for software development. I have 5 years of industry experience mostly in Python. Currently I work at Seagate on monitoring of exa scale storage product.