[Biopython] Introduction

[Brad Chapman]

Chintalagiri;
Thanks for the e-mail and introduction. It's great to have you
interested in Biopython and GSoC. The path you took to Biopython
definitely echos the experience of lots of us; first you try
building everything yourself and then realize: there must be some
code frameworks out there that make this easier.

> I'm interested in working on BioPython/PyCogent interop, because I see a lot 
> of potential in tying the two toolkits together and doing so before more 
> wheels are reinvented. The ability to look at evolutionary effects and 
> structural effects simultaneously could be quite interesting. 
[...]
> I also have a couple of ideas in mind for BioPython projects, which really 
> aren't well fleshed out yet. I'll think about them, specifically, their need 
> and feasibility, and send the details to the list in a few days. 

Great, it sounds like you've already given this a bit of thought. You're
welcome to either build off of the Biopython/PyCogent project or
develop one of your own ideas into a proposal. Either way, the first
step is to start putting together your project proposal and sharing
it with us (Google Docs is a good option) so we can offer specific
feedback on the programming and science part of things. We can work
on the proposals up until Friday, April 9th. If you haven't already
it's worth taking a look at the GSoC timeline for all the major
dates:

http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/timeline

Generally, the proposal should contain:

- A high level overview of what you hope to accomplish during the
  summer.
- A week by week action plan for work to be done, including specific
  deliverables. This should be the bulk of the proposal.
- A short section with relevant background and experience.

We can work on this iteratively until the cutoff, and will be able
to offer more specific feedback as we get an idea of your interests
and directions.

It would also be really useful to provide pointers to any open source 
code we could look at. If you don't have anything online now,
uploading some relevant scripts to a GitHub or Bitbucket repository
is a good start. Demonstrating bug fixing ability, as you mentioned,
is also a helpful way to show off your programming skills to
mentors.

Thanks again. Looking forward to working on the proposal with you,
Brad