[bip] Blog post on bioinformatics and Python

[Peter]

> What frustrated the heck out of me when I tried to use BioPython was the
> apparently lack of automated tests; at any rate, I spent a good two
> hours of my first serious BioPython hacking session fixing some detail
> deep inside the BLAST parsing module -- not BioPython's fault, the BLAST
> format changes every 5 seconds -- and I looked for tests to run.  I
> couldn't find anything at the time, and that worried me.

Regarding BLAST output, we now heavily push people towards using the
XML output in the Biopython documentation.

Regarding having trouble finding the test suite: Was this recently?
The only reason I can think of is you used the Windows installer
(which does not include the test suite).  The test suite is in the
source code archives under the Tests subdirectory.  Assuming you
prefer the command line, you would unzip the archive then use:

python setup.py build
python setup.py test --no-gui

Or, from the Tests subdirectory,

python run_tests.py --no-gui

Peter