Quantum computing (QC) is an emerging computing paradigm with potential to revolutionize the field of computing. QC is a field that is quickly developing globally and has high barriers of entry. In this paper we explore both successful contributors to the field as well as wider QC community with the goal of understanding the backgrounds and training that helped them succeed. We gather data on 148 contributors to open-source quantum computing projects hosted on GitHub and survey 46 members of QC community. Our findings show that QC practitioners and enthusiasts have diverse backgrounds, with most of them having a PhD and trained in physics or computer science. We observe a lack of educational resources on quantum computing. Our goal for these findings is to start a conversation about how best to prepare the next generation of QC researchers and practitioners.
Quantum computing is still a very young field, with software projects constantly pushing the boundary of human knowledge. As such, quantum computing software projects have to deal with all the problems that plague scientific software projects: unforeseen changes in the requirements, lack of software development expertise and limited budgets @cite_23 . The cross-disciplinary nature of quantum computing adds to the complexity of the domain.
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Evolution in scientific software is often according to a specific pattern of software changes: professional scientists, who are not professional software developers, need rapid, dynamic, and domain-specific changes of the software they work this. To address unanticipated software evolution in this field, our objective is to enable these end-users (here: biologists) to change software from the user interface. An approach is presented that integrates technological and methodological solutions. We explain why these solutions are complementary, and how they can be integrated and co-evolved from software design to actual use.