Ruby in Bioinformatics

ruby-talk
1

I’m looking into getting into Bioinformatics (hey, there seem to be some
jobs available in that field :slight_smile: and I’m curious to find out if anyone
knows of places (companies, universities) using Ruby for Bioinformatics in
the US. I checked out the http://bioruby.org page - but it looks like all
of the participants are Japanese.

Also, if you’re involved in the field, can you give me any ideas about
what it takes to break into Bioinformatics if you’re coming from a
CS/EE background.

Thanks.

Phil

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–
"Or perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?"
Amy Weiss (accusing theregister.co.uk of engaging in ‘tabloid journalism’)
Senior VP, Communications
Recording Industry Association of America

2

Also, if you’re involved in the field, can you give me any ideas about
what it takes to break into Bioinformatics if you’re coming from a
CS/EE background.

I’d be interested, too, as it crossed my mind that Ruby would excel in this
field.
I’ve seen O’Reilly books for bio geeks looking to pick up programming
skills, but little in the other direction.

BTW, there’s a fairly interesting newsletter available from
www.bio-itworld.com. I also have a free sub to a paper bio-it mag; try
here: http://www.bio-itworld.com/subscribe/

James

···

Thanks.

Phil

“Or perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?”
Amy Weiss (accusing theregister.co.uk of engaging in ‘tabloid journalism’)
Senior VP, Communications
Recording Industry Association of America

3

" JamesBritt" james@jamesbritt.com writes:

I’ve seen O’Reilly books for bio geeks looking to pick up programming
skills, but little in the other direction.

Neither have I, so I asked James Tisdall, author of Beginning Perl for
Bioinformatics about it; this was his response:

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print "Just another “,0 ? “Ruby” : “Perl”, " double agent\n”;

4

“Simon Cozens” simon@simon-cozens.org wrote in message

Neither have I, so I asked James Tisdall, author of Beginning Perl for
Bioinformatics about it; this was his response:
Beginning Bioinformatics

Speaking from first hand experience, I strongly agree with Tisdall’s
observations in this article. Some 10 years ago, after publishing a couple
of research papers in reputed journals, I came this = close to making the
switch from CS to Bioinformatics. But could not do so due to some personal
reasons. Looking back I cannot say that I regreted the decision. Of course,
it is never possible to accurately predict what could have happened had I
taken “the one less traveled by” (Robert Frost:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/frost_ro
ad.html), but I must admit that it was a fascinating field then and still
is.

If you are seriously thinking of breaking in, make sure that you are willing
to sacrifice a broader career path (and possibly more lucrative one too) for
a more narrower one.

And if you have already made the decision, do keep us (or at least me)
posted.
Wish you the very best !

5

[…]

And if you have already made the decision, do keep us (or at least me)
posted.

Yes, would be nice to hear what you can do in Bioinformatics (though I
have some more semesters to go :slight_smile:

Urban

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Shashank Date sdate@kc.rr.com wrote:

–
My brain wishes my ego had call-waiting.
– Calvin