Software

snaptol is a pytest plugin for snapshot testing that comfortably handles tolerance with floating-point data. It is designed for numerical, scientific, and simulation-based code, where results may often not be exactly deterministic and can depend on randomised initial conditions.

Fortran developer tooling has long lagged behind the options available to other languages. A Python developer might have previously chosen between Pylint and Flake8 to lint their code, or may have used a combination of both. They may have extended them with a number of third-party plugins, and nowadays will likely have replaced both with Ruff. All of these tools are fully capable in their own right, each filling a slightly different niche. The landscape is very different in Fortran, with a scattering of tools such as Flint and Camfort, but no clear frontrunner. Open-source Fortran linters typically have some combination of:

The University of York Research Coding Club has been delivering informal software training courses to staff and students over a number of years, and during a hiatus over the 2024-25 academic year we had the opportunity to rethink how we would organise and deliver our content. At the N8CIR Annual RSE Meetup in July 2025, we became aware of the University of Sheffield’s FAIR² for Research Software (FAIR²4RS) project, an open-source educational resource for teaching intermediate software skills at universities. With their help, we’ve been adapting their resources to design our own new-and-improved Research Coding Course.

xs2arr is a Python package that calculates Arrhenius coefficients from provided cross section data in the LXCat file format. The user can define an electron energy distribution, range of temperatures, and the choice of standard or logarithmic interpolation.

ERMES is a Finite Element Method (FEM) solver for Maxwell’s equations with a wide range of applications. Developed originally at CIMNE (International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering), it has been successfully applied to problems in microwave engineering, bioelectromagnetics and electromagnetic compatibility. With the addition of electrostatic and cold plasma modules, it has found new applications in the design and analysis of tokamak fusion reactors, including the simulation of electric arcs and electromagnetic wave-plasma-wall interactions.