The ATLAS Software Process
Paper: 189
Session: E (talk)
Speaker: Fisher, Stephen, Michael, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), Oxon
Keywords: quality control, world-wide collaboration
The ATLAS Software Process
S.M.Fisher
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Chilton
Didcot
OXON OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
ATLAS
Abstract
The ATLAS Software Process sets out the way in which software
development for the ATLAS experiment will be organised. This process
defines the sequence of activities that take place during the lifetime
of the project, the roles that must be filled in order to implement
the process and the deliverables produced in the course of software
development. The model is evolutionary, with short cycles of
development followed by a review of what has been produced, so that
management gets rapid feedback on the progress of the project. A
particular concern is to ensure that good quality and easily
maintainable code is produced. For this reason, considerable emphasis
has been placed on the necessity for documentation and coding
standards. As there is no experience of a formal software process in
HEP we had to design something which we felt would be acceptable in
our environment. The process is currently being used by a small
group. A part of the process is that the process itself can change--we
have already made changes and expect to make many more especially in
the early stages.