Rich,
I actually agree with just about everything you write. The HPC space is dense and inaccessible and I do sympathize with my users who have to learn and deal with complicated software stacks that have nothing to do with their research area. The issue of the inaccessibility of the scientific computing arena is separate, although related, to my original comment. given the tone of that comment, its probably obvious that I’ve had personal experiences with researchers who are quick to call something broken simply because they do not understand how to use it correctly. My problem lies not with the lack of understanding but rather with the propensity of some to assign blame to others when their codes do not work correctly. I’ve seen these allegations turn into assumptions that the administrative staff is not be doing their jobs correctly, something that I took very personally.
One could accuse me of making my own assumptions here as I am conflating my own experiences with those of the greater HPC realm. We could also launch from here into discussions of the absurdity of the flop arms race or the need for better tools that exacerbate the situation that I describe. Let me just say that we should take the claims of a user that a system is “broken” with a chunk of salt.
