[Biopython-dev] Next release plans?

[Peter]

Hi all,

We're made some good progress since Biopython 1.50, and I think
it may already be time to plan another release.

There was some important "housekeeping" which we will need to
flag in the release notes (and perhaps email Linux packagers about
explicitly), namely we don't support Python 2.3 any more, don't
install Martel any more, and don't depend on mxTextTools any more.

There is also some new stuff too. I think the following still need more
testing, so I'm wondering about another beta release... maybe before
BOSC 2009 as we can then use it in the tutorial sessions?

(1) Writing GenBank files with features. I think this copes with all the
ambiguous and complex locations, which turned out to be a big job,
but some independent testing would be wise.

(2) Supporting the new Illumina FASTQ file format. This still needs
some good tests (ideally with some real data).

(3) Application wrappers (especially Cymon's new alignment wrappers).

We have basic documentation for these in the Tutorial now, plus
a new chapter on the SeqRecord object. GenomeDiagram would
also benefit from further documentation.

Any thoughts? Does rolling this out early next week sound sensible
or simply too ambitious?

Peter