davison@UHNIX2.UH.EDU (Dan Davison) (08/09/90)
> The history of the new features table goes back several years. I > remember the first GenBank Advisors's meeting I attended in October > 1985. [...] As I think I said earlier, there is no question that the new feature table was, and is, desparately needed. > The result is the new features table effective > with release 64. I would point out that there was plenty of advance > warning. This warning included several example entries. Isn't that precious. And there was a Software Developer's workshop on the subject, if I recall correctly. SO WHAT? > Rather I would like to discuss briefly Dan's wish to > have GenBank personnel write code that parses the new features table > and distribute it free. As in a previous posting tonight, I said NOTHING OF THE KIND. If you are going to "respond", at least read what I said. See other postings (at least I hope they went out as postings and not as repies to the authors...I haven't got the hang of this mailer, sigh). As Jim Cassatt is well aware, NIH and other funding agencies acted completely irresponsibly with respect to GenBank until *very* recently. Having spent two years as a postdoc at LANL (although not part of the GenBank project) I am all to well aware of how much work they have had to do on their incredibly inadequate resources. I would not want any of the LANL/IG folk to be writing parsers. NIH and the consortium of agencies have been the source of the problem, and only recently part of the solution. I think the idea of funding scientists to go off and "collect stamps", write them up, and then NOT MAKING THAT DATA USEFULLY AVAILABLE is terminally stupid. Science is a community activity; we "stand on the shoulders" of others. But until recently the funding agencies didn't care about the rest of the community, just funding the best stamp collectors. Jim's comment that GenBank is to collect and distribute [of course it is; that is not the issue at all, at least the issue *I'm* talking about] data is a perfect example of this attitude: a community has grown around GenBank and EMBL, and he couldn't care less, apparently: > [...] it is consciously beyond the scope of the GenBank contract to > develop software to parse the features table. Where is the service and responsibility to the rest of the community? Remember? Biologists who have work to do and would like to use the power of the new feature table? Not software developers? With NIH cutting grants and funding less and less, we're supposed to come up with the money to pay for a work-study/grad student/programmer to deal with the problem just created? > I hope these comments have been helpful. One of the gratifying things > to me has been the community spirit among GenBank users and the > willingness to distribute software that takes advantage of the GenBank > resource. I trust this will continue in the future. It will. The routines will eventually be made available . But NIH dropped the ball on this one, and has left a community adrift meantime. As, unfortunately, seems to be usual. Think consequences. dan -- dr. dan davison/dept. of biochemical and biophysical sciences/univ. of Houston/4800 Calhoun/Houston,TX 77054-5500/davison@uh.edu/DAVISON@UHOU Disclaimer: As always, I speak only for myself, and, usually, only to myself.