[Biojava-l] Weblog / Apps repository

[Thomas Down]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 10:30:09AM +0000, David Huen wrote:
> 
> Weblog
> ======
> There have been several requests for something like a weblog for
> biojava over the last few months.  Before I actually put some effort into
> locating a suitable weblog package and lining up a host to run it on,
> could someone tell me what we could gain from it that the current
> newsgroup set up does not already provide?  As is evident, there's a
> sysadmin/security overhead for any additional facility and I wouldn't want
> to add to it without a clear overwhelming advantage for us to do so.

I think the idea of this was to make it easier to post
news items to the front page of the website.  I don't think
the idea is for the weblog to replace the mailing list, but
to provide an additional, more public, forum for significant
announcements.

Certainly, at the moment the website looks pretty dead,
which seems a shame.  (which reminds me, I ought to post
a message about bootcamp-II there -- I'll do that this
afternoon).

I'm open minded about whether or not a weblog is actually
the way forward here.  

> Repository for Apps
> ===================
> Anyone has ideas as to whether we ought to provide a repository for apps
> that are built upon BioJava, might be of use to others but the inclusion
> of which within the standard source tree will make it even larger than it
> is now?  One way is to put them in as modules in CVS but that could lead
> to a proliferation of modules of unknown content. OTOH, hosting at
> Sourceforge could also be overkill for a smallish app.

I've already been using the BioJava CVS as a repository
for `satelite' projects, such as the Dazzle server.  For
non-trivial programs, I'd say this is probably the way
to go.

One thing which has also been discussed is some kind of
repository for `scripts', which I guess count as 1-2 source
file programs for command line use.  Perhaps we want some
kind of webapp which allows people to upload their scripts,
and browse what's available.  Kind of wiki-for-code, I guess.
I notice BioPerl has a script repository with a submission
page at:

   http://www.bioperl.org/cgi-bin/script_submission.pl

But it looks like submitted scripts get checked and hacked
by a BioPerl developer before posting.  I don't know if there's
anyone here who would want that kind of responsibility in
BioJava.  I'd rather just see people's code posted directly
(with the obvious disclaimer that it's not `official' BioJava
code, provided as is, blah blah blah, etc.)

Any other thoughts on this?

   Thomas.