Large scale modeling efforts: a survey on challenges and best practices

It is well known that there is a categorical difference between programming in the small and programming in the large [2]. Intuitively, one would expect the same kind of difference between modeling in the small and modeling in the large and this is also supported by anecdotal evidence. However, it is not clear whether this is actually true under all circumstances and which of these differences, challenges, and common practices are specific exclusively to large scale modeling efforts. This paper presents the results of a survey to answer these questions.