Bioperl: Joining up...

Ewan Birney birney@sanger.ac.uk
Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:35:10 +0000 (GMT)


On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Vicki Brown wrote:

> At 19:15 +0000 1/25/99, Ewan Birney wrote:
> >
> > We don't mind 'bad' code -
> >
> > Some people are very embarrassed about showing their code to others for
> > fear of being told that there is a better way of doing it. It is fine
> > to have kludges and make hacks - at least if they work - and bioperl has
> > a number of wince-making or obtuse bits of code. Eventually someone takes
> > them out and (hopefully) fixes it. Nearly all of us have made some real
> > howlers in our time (I know I have) so we've all been there.
> 
> I would change one little word... :-)  How about:
> 
>    We don't mind 'imperfect' code -
> 
> Or better yet:
> 
>    We don't require 'perfect' code -
> 

That is perhaps a better phrasing. But ... as Gunther mentioned in a
previous post, displaying your code is good (as long as it works) almost
whatever the quality - this means that at least other people can suggest
work arounds or see what you are trying to do.


My experience is that the first thing to get over is people's reluctance
to share code and then start to work on persuading people to structure
their code sensibly. Just my $0.02


Ewan Birney
<birney@sanger.ac.uk>
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Users/birney/

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