Suggestions for Second Edition?
As Building Bioinformatics Solutions continues to be popular, we are considering producing a second edition. The first edition still is still current and will be around for some years yet but it’s not too early to be thinking about what we might add or change if we do a second edition.
We already have some ideas of our own but we think the best insights always come from readers, so we’d be grateful if some of you who’ve used the book could give us some pointers as to what we could add or change in the next edition.
You can send suggestions to us directly, make a comment via the link below, or make your thoughts known in the second edition forum thread.
Hello!
Thank you for your book, I am currently reading it and found it remarkable in many ways. Even if I’m not in the biotech sector, the problems I have to tackle are of similar nature, so it is very usefull and highly appreciated, to say it mildly
I don’t know in which extent it is relevant, however I think it could be worth considering including an Introduction to Python in a second edition of the book. that an introduction in Python could be a good idea. Indeed, you can seamlessly integrate all your R and MySQL programs directly in a Python framework, and it currently does it all. So, having seen that some books are being published on tackling biotech problems using python, it could be worth considering.
Best regards,
Philipp
A belated thanks for your comment, Philipp! We incorporated your feedback in our proposal for the next edition. It’s difficult to pick a single language for the book because Perl, Python, Ruby and Java are all common in bioinformatics. Perl still seems to be the most widely language used in the community, but we will definitely do more in the next edition to help people get started in the other languages too.
I happen to agree with Philipp on adding python into the second edition. for many biologists are new to bioinformatics. Python really lower the difficulty level for entering the new field for them. Perl is still the widest used language in field is not because its superiority but because it was established earlier. around me, people who started earlier in the field use perl, but more recent starters use Python than perl.
YODA: Code! Yes. A programmer’s strength flows from code
maintainability. But beware of Perl. Terse syntax… more
than one way to do it… default variables. The dark side
of code maintainability are they. Easily they flow, quick
to join you when code you write. If once you start down the
dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume
you it will.