[Biojava-l] Compare Bioperl and Biojava Pls.

[Simon Brocklehurst]

Anu Padki wrote:

> Hi Gurus at Biojava,
>
> I am trying to find out which one to go for, BioPerl or BioJava?
>
> Can someone tell me why there was a need for BioJava ?

> How is it better/different from BioPerl?

Hi,

I'm not sure that "which is better/different BioJava and BioPerl" is
necessarily the best way for you to look at this. Both BioJava and
BioPerl aim to offer re-usable code that developers can make use of
under a pretty unrestrictive license agreeement.

Rather than looking at the BioJava and BioPerl APIs, my advice would be
to figure out which platform/language (Java or Perl) you prefer, and
then choose the corresponding Open-Bio API.

There are big differences between the Java platform and Perl - and these
reasons aren't necessarily easy to understand fully.   For what they're
worth, here are my views (without the reasons):

o If you are looking to build simple computer systems, then either Perl
or Java are probably about equally good.

o If you think you might want to build complex computer systems, then
Java is far preferable to Perl.

Much more important than my views, though, is that you need to choose a
programming language that you enjoy and feel comfortable working with.
You may also want to consider Python, as well as Java and Perl - there
is a BioPython project too.

Good luck in figuring out what you want to do.

Simon
--
Simon M. Brocklehurst, Ph.D.
Head of Bioinformatics & Advanced IS
Cambridge Antibody Technology
The Science Park, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, UK
http://www.CambridgeAntibody.com/
mailto:simon.brocklehurst@CambridgeAntibody.com