[BioPython] The Open Lab (was Re: Tkinter)

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Jeffrey Chang wrote:

> >    We could use Tkinter to create a GUI for biopython.  Is this worth
> > exploring?

> Also, I should mention that there are some open source projects working on
> GUI's for bioinformatics.  The Open Lab (http://theopenlab.uml.edu/) has
> some work going on developing GUI's with Python.

We (The Open Lab) have a strong preference for Python, but we are not excluding
any projects based on language.  Our criterion for bioinformatics development
projects is that the _license_ be compatible with the GNU GPL.  As for software,
we hope to be the Free Software Foundation (GNU) of bioinformatics.  We also
have research and information projects.

> Another intriguing possibility would be to work through the CORBA
> interface that Ewan's been working out.  That way, bioperl and biopython
> could share a GUI.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Along this line, The Open Lab is developing The Loci Project, which is a
CORBA-based, Python-implemented graphical programming language for distributed
data processing (bioinformatics in particular):

  http://theopenlab.uml.edu/loci/

We (Justin Bradford et al.) are developing Python bindings to ORBit (GNU's CORBA
system):

  http://theopenlab.uml.edu/pyorbit/

This is the only free and open-source CORBA implementation for Python.  I am
curious about what Ewan is up to regarding Python and CORBA.

Regarding the cross-platform capabilities of GTK (versus Tkinter), The Open Lab
is hosting the only port of the PyGTK (GTK/Python bindings) widget set to the
Windows OS:

  http://theopenlab.uml.edu/pygtkwin/

We have mailing lists for all of our projects and we hope that more Python
developers for bioinformatics will join in on the fun, as your own Jeff Chang
has already contributed to the Python Phylogenetics project:

  http://theopenlab.uml.edu/pyphy/

It's true that we have great interests in GUI development, and the BioPython
project addresses infrastructure programming, which we have not so far.  I think
The Open Lab and BioPython as well as BioPerl all complement each other in that
respect.  Congratulations on starting this project, and I hope that we can work
closely on some projects.


Cheers.
The other Jeff

--
                         +----------------------------+
                         |        J.W. Bizzaro        |
                         |  jeff@theopenlab.uml.edu   |
                         |                            |
                         |        THE OPEN LAB        |
                         | Open Source Bioinformatics |
                         |                            |
                         | http://theopenlab.uml.edu/ |
                         +----------------------------+