Hmmm. Another book on how to use a programming language for
a niche purpose. I'm probably getting jaded, but I'd like to see "BioInformatics for
Perl Programmers" instead.
O'Reilly could have titled it more accurately by calling it something like "Perl for Biologists Who Didn't Just Do Biology Because It Was The Only Subject Without Computers In It". Their target audience is desperately small.
____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it. | [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
Only on a local level. The lecturers in some of the biology
courses I did would take surveys of the class to see what other
subjects they did. There were no programmers.
That does overlook the possibility of amateur programmers, but
when I found that one of my four hour practicals was "How to search the web",
I started leaping to conclusions.
I'm guessing that in America computer technology isn't so strongly
rejected by biologists. On the flip side, I know that many
programmer types here a totally fascinated by bioinformatics.
So I'd guess that they would be the ones buying, and that's what prompted my suggestion of "Bioinformatics for Perl".
Come to think of it, I would love to see a series of books like "Bioinformatics for programmers, Physics for programmers, Pol Sci for programmers". They could be written for people who like to learn new concepts, and are good at manipulating symbols and doing math and logic.
Kind of the opposite of the XXX for dummies books.
____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
I'm probably getting jaded, but I'd like to see "BioInformatics for Perl Programmers" instead.
Well - I was in a similar situation with Linguistics (Perl for Linguists) where I needed some of my programmers get a book about Linguistics. However a "xxx Book for Perl-Programmers" reaches an ever smaller audience than the other way round. Think about it.
You will be far better off with introductory literature in Bioinformatics. e.g. : This one.
Bye
PetaMem All Perl: MT, NLP, NLU
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
I found "non-programmers" (or programmers that work a lot with non-programmers) often wrote very good tutorials. And I personally prefer to read a programming book focused on some exotic topic, rather than the generic ones
Also, bioinformatics serves as a good model for other people to draw inspiration from, just as psychologists draw inspiration from economics, economists from physics, etc.
And the best problem-solvers are often the cross-disciplinarians.
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |