Sounds like Mr. Blender prefers to take his Biology straight. Forgive my little joke. As others on this thread have said, just computer science is not enough. However, a strong background in scientific applications along with computer science would serve one well in this field. Bioinformatics brings in whole new skill sets that are more likely to be possessed by slashdotters than rat slashers - string searching, data mining, large databases, algorithm and gui development, massively complex networking and data sharing, and putting this all together in a coherent computer system design.
Other skills of a more mathematical or statistical nature are probably a wash - the skimpy math requirements of a CS degree barely eclipse the skimpy math requirements in biology. Statistics is the rub. I may not know Drosophila Melanogaster from Mus Musculus, but if I have an understanding of the theory behind Blast or Hidden Markov Models, then I may bring something to the party.
Wearing just minimum flair, G
This is just my opinion, but I think what the world needs is a book on Regular Expression Design Patterns.
How bout this, Tim --
Nanopatterns: Divorcing Devil from Detail with Smart Regex
featuring
Dust Pan
Flea Flicker
Army Ants
Swarm Factory
To put things in a larger frame, 1111111111 seconds is almost exactly one ninth of 10 billion seconds, or as Carl Sagan would say, billions and billions of seconds, just about 316.8876 years. Don't hold your breath.
I think this is on the right track. I would recommend LOGO turtle graphics, starting with a simple command set to draw shapes on the screen. Start with a rectangle which can be drawn with: Forward (FD) 10, Right (RT) 90, FD 10, RT 90, etc. Before doing this let the kids actually be the turtle in the classroom, and get them up and walking around. Then introduce more abstract commands like Repeat 4 [FD 10, RT 90].
Now we're getting somewhere. Introduce variables for the size of the rectangle. Then move on to other shapes like cirles and heaven forfend, flowers. Then you can graduate to LEGO-LOGO for embedded programming.
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Sounds like Mr. Blender prefers to take his Biology straight. Forgive my little joke. As others on this thread have said, just computer science is not enough. However, a strong background in scientific applications along with computer science would serve one well in this field. Bioinformatics brings in whole new skill sets that are more likely to be possessed by slashdotters than rat slashers - string searching, data mining, large databases, algorithm and gui development, massively complex networking and data sharing, and putting this all together in a coherent computer system design. Other skills of a more mathematical or statistical nature are probably a wash - the skimpy math requirements of a CS degree barely eclipse the skimpy math requirements in biology. Statistics is the rub. I may not know Drosophila Melanogaster from Mus Musculus, but if I have an understanding of the theory behind Blast or Hidden Markov Models, then I may bring something to the party. Wearing just minimum flair, G
This is just my opinion, but I think what the world needs is a book on Regular Expression Design Patterns. How bout this, Tim -- Nanopatterns: Divorcing Devil from Detail with Smart Regex featuring Dust Pan Flea Flicker Army Ants Swarm Factory
To put things in a larger frame, 1111111111 seconds is almost exactly one ninth of 10 billion seconds, or as Carl Sagan would say, billions and billions of seconds, just about 316.8876 years. Don't hold your breath.
I think this is on the right track. I would recommend LOGO turtle graphics, starting with a simple command set to draw shapes on the screen. Start with a rectangle which can be drawn with: Forward (FD) 10, Right (RT) 90, FD 10, RT 90, etc. Before doing this let the kids actually be the turtle in the classroom, and get them up and walking around. Then introduce more abstract commands like Repeat 4 [FD 10, RT 90]. Now we're getting somewhere. Introduce variables for the size of the rectangle. Then move on to other shapes like cirles and heaven forfend, flowers. Then you can graduate to LEGO-LOGO for embedded programming.