How do you use FoX – survey results
Andrew Walker
I thought I should update readers of this list on some of the results from
the FoX survey you may remember that I announced in December. Thank you to
all who took part.
I received a total of 18 responses, more than I was expecting. However,
this is still a small survey where the respondents were self-selected. The
results should therefore probably be taken with a pinch of salt (and
I’ve not attempted any sophisticated statistics, just looked at the
unfiltered answers).
The first questions were an attempt to find out which bits of the FoX were
being used and what they were being used for. Somewhat to my surprise
(given the origin of FoX in computational chemistry) the majority of
respondents (~65%) use the DOM module, 40% use the SAX module, 30% use the
wxml or wcml modules and 15% use wkml (none of these are exclusive). The
module usage is mirrored by what FoX is used for. 40% use FoX to read
configuration or other data files, about 30% use FoX to write the main or
auxiliary output data files, 20% specifically write CML and 10% write KML.
A small number of respondents use FoX to modify (10%) or validate (5%) XML
documents. All but one respondents report that they use a reasonably
recent (4.0 or newer) version of FoX.
The second set of questions attempted to understand the range of systems
and compilers used with FoX. For most applications (90%) FoX is an
essential component. A wide range of compilers are used with the most
common being Intel/ifort (70%), GCC/gfortran (65%) and g95 (40%). There is
a remarkably even split between the main operating systems (40% Linux, 30%
Windows, 35% OSX) with many development and build systems in use.
The third set of questions attempted to understand how FoX, and the
applications that use the library, are distributed. Most applications are
either distributed in binary (45%) or as source code (40%) form with FoX
included as part of the application. Only a few respondents (10%)
indicated that the application’s end user was expected to obtain or
compile FoX independently of the main installation process.
The final part of the survey asked for details about particular
applications that use FoX. These are interesting, particularly the breadth
of uses to which FoX is put. I’ll probably contact a few
respondents directly to see if some interesting case studies can be
shared.
Anyway, I think I’ve gained some useful information (that FoX is
used for a wider range of rather generic XML operations, that the DOM
module is so widely used, and that ifort is used by so many people).
Many thanks,
Andrew
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Peter Murray-Rust
Dear all,
I thought I should update readers of this list on some of the results from
the FoX survey you may remember that I announced in December. Thank you to
all who took part.
My experience is that there is a large hinterland of people using software and they often only appear when there are bugs. So I am not surprised it's larger than you think. And surveys are usually poorly filled - figures of 20% or less are common. So I think you can multiply by some factor!
P.
--
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069