Posted by Adrian Smith
on July 23, 2008
A while ago I wrote some code to generate tag clouds from a set of words – mainly for fun. But I have just discovered Wordle. From their web site …
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
I ran this site through it and it generated the image below. Hours of fun!
Posted by Adrian Smith
on July 09, 2008
I came across the Open Channel Foundation in a quick search for the NASTRAN source code. They provide software for a wide range of engineering and scientific applications.
Note: The NASTRAN source code costs around $4000 USD.
Posted by Adrian Smith
on July 07, 2008
Coming from an engineering background, I have seen the issues that well meaning engineers encounter when attempting to develop software.
These include:
- Inappropriate technology or language selection
- Poor architecture and strong coupling between components
- Inadequate or non-existent testing
As a result they often spend much of their time fighting with the software instead of solving the design or research problem. Additionally, the reuse and extensibility of the software is limited, resulting in significant rework.
Software Carpentry provides an excellent online course based on Open Source content intended to give scientists and engineers the fundamentals of software development.