Mantle convection may unfold the hidden stories of planetary interiors over billions of years, but geodynamic models can crash in milliseconds. While figures in papers often show smooth convective flows with elegant plumes and slabs, the path to those results is not very easy. This week, Prachi Kar, a PhD candidate at Arizona State University, …[Read More]
`Segmentation fault’. One of the most annoying things ever to appear on our screens. Right up there with `fftw.h not found’. Compilation errors are the (rock-hard) bread and (rancid) butter of any of us that need to debug write codes. Tahina is deeply down the rabbit hole and asks: Why does my code not compile? …[Read More]
If I asked you about what your carbon footprint is, your mind might jump to the food choices you make when at the supermarket, or how many conferences you fly to when you could get a train (well, not now, but you know, back in ye olden days). In this week’s post, Eoghan Totten, a …[Read More]
“The ideal applicant will have a strong background in coding.” I’m not sure if those were the exact words that advertised my PhD project, but a requirement of coding ability was certainly heavily implied. We’re used to hearing stories about job requirements in the professional world, but in my experience at least, we think much …[Read More]
As big software packages become a commonplace in geodynamics, which skills should a geodynamicist aim at having in software development? Which techniques should be considered a minimum standard for our software? This week Rene Gassmöller, project scientist at UC Davis, Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics, shares his insights on the best practices to make scientific software better, and how we can work …[Read More]
