Announcing EMBOSS 2.0.0

[ableasby at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk]

EMBOSS 2.0.0 includes:

1. Feature table reading: EMBL, Swissprot and PIR feature tables are
   handled by rewritten library routines. Tables can currently be
   read and written (or interconverted) in native or GFF formats.
   For the applications programmer an internal key/value pair
   structure greatly simplifies use.

2. Report Handling: Stub code to enable application output to be
   selected in (a range of) standard output report formats has
   been included. The feature tables above use one of these
   formats. More report formats will be added during the lifetime of
   the 2.x.x series. Release 3.0.0 of EMBOSS will mark the completion
   of this phase.

3. Code purification: All library code and applications are tested
   for memory handling before release. To our knowledge the code does
   not leak a single byte in normal use. A "purify" script is provided
   (mainly for developers).

4. Quality control: code has been written, supplied and used for
   testing code prior to release. This ensures that applications
   produce the same output (where appropriate) after changes to
   the library etc. A QA test script is provided/

5. Code modification: almost all the source code has been revamped
   since the 1.x.x series. All functions, including those in
   applications, have unique names. This now allows you to navigate
   the entire source code using SRS.

6. Protein structure code has been added and, although not yet
   complete, this marks one of many new directions for applications.

Not entirely by coincidence the release of 2.0.0, like 1.0.0, has
happened on St Swithin's Day (15th July) just prior to the ISMB
conference. So, if it works on that day it should work for 40 days
thereafter! We look forward to making the same joke again next year (1).

Alan

On behalf of the development team (apologies if your name has been
omitted by accident) who are:

HGMP: Alan Bleasby, Tim Carver, Jon Ison, Ranjeeva Ranasinghe,
      Gary Williams
Lion Bioscience: Peter Rice

Special thanks to David Martin (University of Dundee) for the
administration guide. To Lisa Mullan (HGMP training courses) for
providing feedback and suggestions from course attendees.

Thanks to all who have made suggestions, provided bug reports or
contributed code. If we've failed to acknowledge you here you
should be there in the source code. If not, tell us and we'll fix
it!


Footnote:

1.
St. Swithin's Day if thou dost rain, 
For forty days it will remain; 
St. Swithin's Day if thou be fair, 
For forty days 'twill rain na mair.