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arXiv:1507.03989astro-ph.IM

Software Use in Astronomy: an Informal Survey

Ivelina Momcheva, Erik Tollerud

Abstract

We report on an informal survey about the use of software in the worldwide astronomical community. The survey was carried out between December 2014 and February 2015, collecting responses from 1142 astronomers, spanning all career levels. We find that all participants use software in their research. The vast majority of participants, 90%, write at least some of their own software. Even though writing software is so wide-spread among the survey participants, only 8% of them report that they have received substantial training in software development. Another 49% of the participants have received "little" training. The remaining 43% have received no training. We also find that astronomers' software stack is fairly narrow. The 10 most popular tools among astronomers are (from most to least popular): Python, shell scripting, IDL, C/C++, Fortran, IRAF, spreadsheets, HTML/CSS, SQL and Supermongo. Across all participants the most common programing language is Python ($67\pm 2\%$), followed by IDL ($44\pm 2\%$), C/C++ ($37\pm 2\%$) and Fortran ($28\pm 2\%$). IRAF is used frequently by $24\pm 1\%$ of participants. We show that all trends are largely independent of career stage, area of research and geographic location.

arXiv comments
Available on Authorea: https://www.authorea.com/users/10533/articles/18046; Interactive visualization: http://eteq.github.io/software_survey_analysis/software_tools_heirarchy_d3vis.html
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
astro-ph.IMInstrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics cs.CYComputers and Society

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Linked by 3 identifiable commenters in 3 comments across 3 threads, from Jul 2015 to Sep 2015. Found in 2 HN submissions from Jul 2015 to Mar 2019. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments3 threads

  1. Practical Python for Astronomers 1 comment

    • According to a recent study on the current usage of programming languages in astronomy -http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.03989 - Fortran, quite popular in the old days, is still used by a quarter of scientists in the field. Python has been growing very fast in the last five years…

      stargazer-3View on HNParent context

  2. 50 years of Fortran at CERN (2007) 1 comment

    • I just noticed http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.03989v1.pdf (it's on todays HN). It claims that in Astronomy Python is used over twice as much as FORTRAN and even C/C++ is used more.

      todd8View on HNParent context

  3. How to learn data science 1 comment

    • I've never seen this venn diagram before--thanks for bringing it up. I find that, as an academic (pursuing a Ph.D. in astrophysics) that plenty of traditional researchers are able to hack together code (many haven't ever taken a formal programming course…

      jwuphysicsView on HNParent context

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