[BioRuby] bioruby book chapter

[Pjotr Prins]

I have had some discussion with Ara - and am happy to take a lead in a
team effort - if no one else does. There are three real advantages:

1. It is an opportunity to document BioRuby (rdoc and Wiki) - I know I
   should have done it ages ago

2. It will attract more scientists (especially if we accentuate
   against BioPerl)

3. It puts Ruby and BioRuby in the lime light

So it is killing more birds with one stone. Ara will credit the
authors of each chapter by name and organisation - important for
scientists who need that as a publication in their job (I do if I book
time against it). It should be more than BioRuby though - it is also
about using Ruby as a programming language in the life sciences.

We may want to ask Ara if we can use a modified version of the chapter
in BioRuby documentation. That may help advertise the book. If the
book never gets published we should be allowed to take it public
too.

Inside the chapter the authors of BioRuby should be credited too.

I am quite happy to do it on my own, but if you think you can do a
similar sized chunk of the work - and produce real text - I'd think it
be really cool to have you as co-author(s). Mind, it is a big
exercise. Documentation always is. Reserve a few full-time weeks for
it.

So let's go for it!

Pj.


On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 03:55:44PM -0600, Moses Hohman wrote:
> I'd be interested in helping out; I was waiting for the most  
> established BioRuby people to answer first in case they wanted to. In  
> any case, I'm hoping you are also interested, Toshiaki, because your  
> perspective would be invaluable. I am not a good example case of  
> BioRuby in use because I have only been involved as a hobby, though I  
> am a bioinformatics/bio-IT person.