[bip] Bioinformatics software design

[Erich Schwarz]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Kevin Teague wrote:

> ... it's invaluable to have a build tool that can be used to
> compile and configure all of the moving parts of your application.
> You can use this to make it much easier for end users to install
> the software on whatever platform they happen to be running, as
> well as to bring new developers on your team quickly up to speed.
> As a sysadmin it sucks to have a bioinformatician ask for some
> software to be made available on our servers and realize that the
> project only has an error-filled 12 page INSTALL.txt file (even if
> the INSTALL.txt continually re-assures the frustrated sysadmin
> that "CPAN is great")!

    This is the single most acute comment I've read on
bioinformatics software in quite a while.

    Not having a real solution to this mess-o'-dependencies problem
has seriously plagued wormbase.org, for years on end (giddy claims
of "CPAN is great!!!1!!1!" notwithstanding).


--Erich