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i need help

Tue, 2005-04-26 22:20 — travismiller

I am a high school student in tenth grade and my teacher has asigned an assignement where we have to find pros and cons (or positives and negatives) of using bioinformatics. If anyone could help me with this information it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Tbone


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Wed, 2005-04-27 12:17 — chris

A hint or two

It's kind of hard figuring out how to get into an area you don't really understand. It gets easier with practice (trust me, I've blundered into enough unknown areas over time), but in the meantime, here's a couple of hints on how to start thinking about what to ask about.

What is bioinformatics? And I mean in more depth than some glib one-liner from a general purpose definition.

What is the context of bioinformatics? Where is it used, what kind of questions are being asked with it, what is their relevance, etc.

What are the limitations?

Ask us questions, yes. Show us that you've thought about it and/or are confused, and we may try to help. Dump your homework question as a one liner, and you'll be lucky to not get flamed, trolled or spoofed.


Tue, 2005-04-26 23:46 — Greg

Let's get something straight,

Let's get something straight, joking around is fine but wasting our time isn't, which is I deleted the previous two comments. Now, if you need help with your assignment on bioinformatics you've come to the right place. The only problem is you're going about it the wrong way.

Because you're in high school I will indulge you for a moment, but only a moment. Firstly when you ask a question, you need to ask it the right way if you expect to get help from people like us. There is an excellent essay entitled How To Ask Questions The Smart Way on just that topic (it is a little specific to asking questions about how to use software but the principles still apply here). Once you have read that thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) repost your question and you can expect some of the finest practitioners of bioinformatics to answer your question (if they're feeling in the mood).

Here is a choice quote from that essay that you might want to keep in mind:

What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer. We call people like this “losers