[BioRuby] bioruby docs

[jan aerts (RI)]

Just a little suggestion: what if we would start with trying to get an idea of who blogs about ruby and bioinformatics? We could then put that list on the bioruby website for example. There is Propeller Twist (http://fjossinet.u-strasbg.fr/), the new bioinforuby by Francesco (http://bioinforuby.blogspot.com/), my own SaaienTist (http://saaientist.blogspot.com), and if possible the Japanese ones as well. I suspect that Mitsuteru has one: http://bioruby.g.hatena.ne.jp/nakao_mitsuteru/.

What do you think?

jan.


-----Original Message-----
From: bioruby-bounces at lists.open-bio.org on behalf of jan aerts (RI)
Sent: Fri 12/10/2007 13:40
To: Pjotr Prins; Shameer Khadar
Cc: bioruby at lists.open-bio.org
Subject: Re: [BioRuby] bioruby docs
 
Hey Pjotr.

You're absolutely right. The last thing I wanted to do was to criticize the management (I hope you don't read the blog post in that way). They've done a great job and it's not easy to put a lot of effort in an open source project (as I've experienced myself as well). Believe me: I have the greatest respect. As I mentioned in that post, what I proposed was actually to have part of the load lifted from upper echelon's shoulders. That way, they probably would feel less pressure as well about being in charge of bioruby. Where I mentioned "getting organized", I didn't mean that _they_ should get organized (as a way of pointing a finger), but that we should find a way to distribute the responsibilities more. It's *us*, the community, that has to get organized as well. As you say, until there is a group of people that can say "We'll put a lot of time in this and make it a great success", we all favour running with the people who gave birth to bioruby. At the same time, we could hel!
 p them more if some simple things would be organized in a slightly different way (e.g. making it easy to give people the opportunity to add to the wiki).

What I wanted to call for in addition, is to have bioruby put a bit more in the spotlights. We all know that bioruby is relatively unknown compared to other projects like bioperl (obviously), biojava and biopython. Of course that has a lot to do with the fact that ruby is less known than the other languages, but I think that 'getting the word out' is not a bad thing. Hence my call for a blog or something where we (the developers) could organize our thoughts on what we would like to add to or change in bioruby as well as explain the rationale behind some decisions. The more bioruby is mentioned everywhere, the more we can create a buzz, the more people will get interested, the more developers we'll get, the better bioruby will become.

So in the end, you're right if you say "who has the time or energy". What we could try to do is find a way to distribute the efforts, so less time and energy is needed from single individuals.

I'll try to rephrase some things on the blog to make sure it's clear that it's meant as some suggestions rather than criticism. (The title now seems like a bad choice as well...)

jan.


-----Original Message-----
From: bioruby-bounces at lists.open-bio.org on behalf of Pjotr Prins
Sent: Fri 12/10/2007 12:20
To: Shameer Khadar
Cc: bioruby at lists.open-bio.org
Subject: Re: [BioRuby] bioruby docs
 
On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 02:48:32PM +0530, Shameer Khadar wrote:
> Here is an excellent article about the status of BioRuby
> http://saaientist.blogspot.com/
> (NB: Not official but an excellent personal perspective)

Criticism is good and Jan is a respected contributor to BioRuby.
Nevertheless with open source projects we have to take great care at
giving people their due respect and it is easier to criticise the
management side of this type of project than actually fixing stuff. I
have seen to many opensource projects where people don't actually
commit themselves fully after lengthy discussions on 'how to do
things'.

So, until a number of individuals steps up and says "WE WANT TO RUN
WITH THIS PROJECT AND MAKE IT A GREAT SUCCESS", I will favour the
idea of running with the people who have made it a success, so far.

Otherwise, it is unfair on the guys who have put in a lot of their
free time and energy to get where we are.

Almost all open source project hinge on a few individuals - and
BIORUBY could do better (I agree), but who has the real time and
energy and has the proven coding track record? Both Jan and Trevor
belong in the last category - but I know they don't have time.

Pj.


_______________________________________________
BioRuby mailing list
BioRuby at lists.open-bio.org
http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioruby


_______________________________________________
BioRuby mailing list
BioRuby at lists.open-bio.org
http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioruby