[Bioperl-l] Bio::Species, Bio::Taxonomy::Node overhaul

[Chris Fields]

Any changes to the modules can be posted as updates or addenda on the  
Module page, and the sooner the better.  An example is the continual  
comments left for the RemoteBlast tool:

http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/Module:Bio::Tools::Run::RemoteBlast

There are a few users who seem to use the wiki extensively and don't  
use the list.  Of course there are those who would rather just post a  
question on the list w/o bothering to look up the info on the wiki.

Jason has a style list for adding links and other 'pretty  
stuff' (markup):

http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/BioPerl:Style_guide

Also note the project priority list, make changes as needed there as  
well:

http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/Project_priority_list

Chris

On Aug 7, 2006, at 3:38 AM, Sendu Bala wrote:

> Sendu Bala wrote:
>> Hilmar Lapp wrote:
>>> 1) It sounds a bit that you changed the behavior of get_lca() such
>>> that users may have to adjust their code? If this is true, then this
>>> needs to be made clear in the 1.6 release as that part will not be
>>> backward compatible. If this is not true, then why did you have to
>>> change the implementation of Bio::Tools::Phylo::PAML to make tests
>>> pass? I.e., to what extent can what broke Bio::Tools::Phylo::PAML
>>> also break someone's script?
>>
>> I can say that it /should/ have given the same results, but  
>> clearly it
>> didn't. What I had to change in PAML was the way in which PAML  
>> found the
>> lca of multiple nodes; it had its own algorithm for that, that used
>> get_lca 2 nodes at a time. Now it just calls get_lca once,  
>> supplying all
>> the nodes in one go.
>>
>> I don't think I spent any time trying to figure out the problem, I  
>> just
>> made the change:
>>
>> < while( @nodes_L > 1 ) {
>> <     my $lca = $tree->get_lca
>> < 	(-nodes => [shift @nodes_L,
>> < 		    shift @nodes_L]);
>> <     push @nodes_L, $lca;
>> < }
>> < my $n = shift @nodes_L;
>> ---
>>> my $n = @nodes_L < 2 ? shift(@nodes_L) : $tree->get_lca(@nodes_L);
>>
>> I'll look into it and see if I can avoid any behaviour change.
>
> Oh yes, I remember now. get_lca() used to consider an input node as a
> possible ancestor of itself, which is how the algorithm in PAML  
> worked.
>
> So there will be a behaviour change - now get_lca really does only get
> the lowest common ancestor of input nodes, which necessarily can't be
> any of the input nodes themselves.
>
> I'd call the old behaviour a bug that has now been fixed. (Though the
> code had a comment to the effect that it was a quite deliberate choice
> on the part of the author.)
>
>
> Ah, I just realised that the PAML algorithm is on the wiki, so many
> people may have use it:
> http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/HOWTO:Trees#Bio::Tree::TreeFunctionsI
> The old get_lca behaviour was probably there purely to allow this
> convergence to work. I'll have to edit that page along the lines of  
> 'to
> get the lca of multiple nodes you used to have to do ..., but now  
> you do
> ...'. When would I make that edit? After I commit, or when 1.6  
> comes out?
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Christopher Fields
Postdoctoral Researcher
Lab of Dr. Robert Switzer
Dept of Biochemistry
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign