Speaker
Description
Wilson is a simulation package for a class of vibrational wave-mixing experiments, developed alongside the theoretical work it implements. The underlying physics decomposes naturally into distinct contributions, and the workflow layer is organised around that decomposition. Stages can be driven independently. Intermediates are accessible. A spectral feature can be tracked back to the contributions that produced it. The package covers a well-defined portion of what the framework can describe, with room to grow as the underlying theory and its applications develop.
Deciding what belonged inside the current scope, and what to leave for later, has been an ongoing design question throughout development. In practice the line between organic growth and scope creep has not always been obvious to us. The poster presents the project's architecture, and the scoping questions it has raised. We offer it as a concrete case for a broader discussion: how to define scope at different stages of a research software project, and how to let it evolve without the code accumulating the cost of every earlier decision.