[BioPython] follow up to bosc

Jeffrey Chang jchang@SMI.Stanford.EDU
Mon, 24 Apr 2000 13:49:19 -0700 (PDT)


On Mon, 24 Apr 2000, Brad Chapman wrote:

> 
> Jeff wrote:
> > I'll be at ISMB, and will attend BOSC-2000.  At least I, and perhaps 
> other
> > people from biopython, will be able to give a high-level overview 
> talk
> > about the current state and future directions for biopython, so 
> please go
> > ahead and pencil in a slot for us.
> > 
> > So far, the major work in biopython are:
> > Sequence protocol    Andrew
> > Unit Tests           Cayte
> > Corba interface      Brad
> > Parsers              Jeff
> > 
> > Can any of you attend BOSC and talk about the work?
> 
> As of right now I'm planning to be at both as well, even if it does 
> require me to miss the first few days of classes (I'll try to contain 
> my extreme sadness :). I'll leave the high-level overview talking up 
> to Jeff, but would be more than happy to chat it up about the Corba 
> interface. 
>     Does anyone think it would be useful to try and organize some 
> discussion groups in addition to the presentations? This might be a 
> way be help generate some discussion between biojava/python/perl/xml 
> groups (and other interested parties :), help us learn from each other 
> design ideas, and kind of set up plans for future development, etc. 
> Jeff seems to have set up some nice categories above: 
> Sequence/Sequence Feature Represenation, Parsers, Testing, and Corba 
> interfaces. I would also add XML stuff to this list. Does anyone else 
> think this would be a good idea? Is there time for this? Just a 
> thought.
> 
> Brad


Yes, this is a great idea!  In particular, the Corba stuff would probably
benefit from greater coordination among groups.  In addition, there's been
some talk about setting up a common repository of testing examples to test
parsers.  Finally, there's been talk at biopython for automatically
generating parsers.  We would describe bioinformatics data formats in some
sort of syntax which could be used to generate parsers in various
languages.  Thus, this effort may be of interest to the other groups as
well.

Jeff