[Bioperl-l] Implementing Bioperl6 for GSoC 2012

[Leon Timmermans]

On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Bart Wiegmans <bartwiegmans at gmail.com>wrote:

> This is my first e-mail to the list and thus my introduction. My name
> is Bart Wiegmans, I study biology at the University of Groningen, the
> netherlands. It is my goal to implement bioperl6 this summer as part
> of the GSoC program.
>

Cool. Though I am wondering what exactly you want to implement. BioPerl as
a whole is 2000 modules, not even a dozen GSOC students could implement
that. You will have to focus on something.

Also, I'd like to learn perl6 well, and this
> is only possible when one writes a significant program in it.
> Moreover, I think perl6 is awesome, and having a real-world toolkit
> like bioperl out there might just be enough to develop a significant
> community using it.


How much time do you expect that to cost? Having to learn a new language
means you will get less done that you would ordinarily. This doesn't have
to be a problem, but do keep it into account.


> As a third, I think perl5's object support is
> crufty, and difficult to learn for many people. These people include
> biologists who might not be inclined to learn it, and rather use some
> other tools instead.
>

Perl 5's object support can be quite elegant with modern OO frameworks such
as Moose and relatives. Sadly, BioPerl itself is based on fairly dated
paradigms.

Aside from my motivation and capabilities, two other factors somewhat
> complicate my involvement with GSoC. The first is that the academic
> year ends halfway in July in the netherlands, not in may as in the USA
> and in many other countries. This means that I am not 'free' in a real
> sense before that time. Also, I have a day job as a PHP programmer for
> a local online students' magazine, which also takes some time. Which
> is unfortunate, because I'd rather spend my time writing useful
> programs; hence, if you would accept me as a student I plan to take
> leave from this job during the period of GSoC.
>

Yeah, I'm familiar with that problem, it's rather unfortunate.


> Anyway, I realize this has been enough information for any interested
> reader. If there is any interest on your side, I frequent freenode
> under the nickname brrt. Other than that and this e-mail address, I
> don't have much of an online presence.
>

Well, then come join us at #bioperl and #perl6 then.

Leon