[BioPython] "Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills"

[Johann Visagie]

Ewan Birney on 2001-03-28 (Wed) at 16:00:01 +0100:
> 
> It depends whether you want to teach somsone programming or get something
> done (honestly).

Please excuse an attitude honed by years of cleaning up after people who "got
something done".  :->

> Choose the language for the problem and the type of person.

<tangent>

I'd be the first to support the "round pegs in round holes" philosophy.
(Indeed, I base my argument upon that.)  A problem arises because some tools
are like pegs made of silly putty - they give the impression that they fit
every hole perfectly.  (And please let's not single out Perl here; there are
many of these.  Programming languages, databases, operating systems, ...)

Of course there's nothing wrong, per se, with a tool having this
characteristic.  The problem is that such tools often fool those users who
have not had the benefit of wider experience into thinking that they _are_ in
fact the ideal fit for any unpegged hole.  The result:  hordes of users who
never even examine the array of available pegs.

Crawling back to /dev/null,
-- Johann