[Biopython-dev] Bio.Ndb obsolete?

[Peter]

Hi all,

I just had a very superficial look at the Bio.Ndb module.  This is an
HTML parser written six years ago, with its last real update five
years ago.  The given URL doesn't work, but the server is still up -
however from first glance the whole page layout has changed.

For example, compare the old HTML example under Bio/Ndb/PR0004.html to
what seems to be the current equivalent:
http://ndbserver.rutgers.edu/servlet/IDSearch.NDBSearch1?id=PR0004

I think it is safe to say Bio.Ndb stopped working some time ago due to
the website's HTML changing.  Does anyone here use this database?
Maybe we should ask on the mailing list, and assuming no one is
interested, just deprecate this code.

For future, should we have a statement
http://www.biopython.org/wiki/Contributing and in the tutorial that we
don't want to add any HTML parsers to Biopython?

Peter