Programming in the Small

Academic medical centers, in general, and radiation oncology research, in particular, rely heavily on custom software tools and applications. The code development is typically the responsibility of a single individual or at most a small team. Often these individuals are not professional programmers but physicists, students, and physicians. While they possess domain expertise and algorithm knowledge, they often are not fully aware of general “safe coding” practices—nor do they need the full complexity familiar in large commercial software projects to succeed. Rather, some simple guidelines we refer to as “programming in the small” can be used.