Bringing Scientific Software to the Web Browser

Live execution log for DISHTINY web app.

Although nominally open sourced, much scientific software is inaccessible in practice because it is prohibitively difficult to use — particularly for members of the general public. This software usually requires users to manually download and install the software, manage complicated software dependencies, and have familiarity with command-line interfaces. Browser-based software with an interactive GUI removes those barriers for both the public and for other scientists.

The Empirical project unlocks the benefit potential of in-browser scientific software by providing a C++ interface to implement HTML GUIs that wrap the pre-existing research version of software, making it easier for researchers to keep the most recent version of scientific software available widely.

Where possibles, I package my experiments & software with Empirical and publish them as interactive in-browser apps like DISHTINY. I also serve as a core contributor on the Empirical project, leading development of re-usable “prefabricated” GUI components and maintaining support for the Emscripten Web Worker API in the core library, among other responsibilities.

@software{Ofria_Empirical_C_library_2020,
  author = {Ofria, Charles and Moreno, Matthew Andres and Dolson, Emily and Lalejini, Alex and Rodriguez Papa, Santiago and Fenton, Jake and Perry, Katherine and Jorgensen, Steven and hoffmanriley and grenewode and Baldwin Edwards, Oliver and Stredwick, Jason and cgnitash and theycallmeHeem and Vostinar, Anya and Moreno, Ryan and Schossau, Jory and Zaman, Luis and djrain},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.4141943},
  license = {MIT},
  month = {10},
  title = {{Empirical: C++ library for efficient, reliable, and accessible scientific software}},
  url = {https://github.com/devosoft/Empirical},
  version = {0.0.4},
  year = {2020}
}