Reuse and bidirectional further development of research software

In the years 2021-2024, around 700 letters were digitally edited as part of the DFG project “Henze-Digital”. In order to be able to cope with the immense workload, the premise from the outset was not to create our own software solution, but to test the reuse of existing research software. A novelty in the field of musicology. Due to the research location Detmold/Paderborn, where the project was based, it made sense to adapt the research software (WeGA-WebApp) and the data schemas (TEI-ODD) of the Carl Maria von Weber Complete Edition (WeGA), as this infrastructure has been developed at the same location for over ten years (2011) and is considered state-of-the-art (in musicology).Since the WeGA WebApp can already process the WeGA research data, only the adaptations for Henze-Digital had to be implemented - or so the theory goes. The problem: The HenDi-WebApp resulting from the further development and its origin (WeGA-WebApp) should have a stable bidirectional connection, while both products were further developed in parallel. The goal: The adaptations and further developments that were necessary as part of Henze-Digital were to create synergy effects between the two projects. An initial approach was to modify the source code of the WebApp as a git-fork in order to maintain the dependency on the original code. This quickly proved to be unsuitable, as in-depth adjustments to the infrastructure of the software made synchronization with the Origin impossible from a labor-economic perspective. By integrating the source code of the WeGA WebApp as git submodules and a complex build process (Apache Ant), in which large parts of the original build scripts were used, a workflow was created through which the methodical concept could be used productively. The integration of this process into a Gitlab CI simplified the delivery of the software enormously.But how are the adjustments to the code actually handled? After all, a bug fix in the HenDi WebApp only makes limited sense if this error remains in the WeGA WebApp. Cross-project coordination between the developers was essential, also with regard to the reintroduction or implementation of new features. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)