End-User Software Engineering and Professional End-User Developers

By the term ‘professional end-user developers’ is meant professionals working in a highly technical, knowledge-rich domain who develop their own software in order to further their professional work. I have conducted empirical studies of such developers working in the domains of financial mathematics ([1], [2]), earth and space sciences ([2], [3]), and, currently, structural biology. These developers are distinguished from other end-user developers in two ways. The first is that, consistent with their being familiar with formal notations and logical scientific reasoning, they tend to have few problems with coding per se. The second is that, as a class, they have a history of developing their own software which long predates the advent of the PC.