[BiO BB] How to write Algorithms

[Philipp Pagel]

	Hi!

> The analogy I would like to draw is having all the tools for building a car,
> without ever having seen a car - what is the point ?
> 
> Finally, I think all the books suggested are great and I have myself used
> them extensively, so please do not misunderstand my point, which is - Find a
> problem first and then start thinking about how you want to solve it.

Sure - in order to solve a real world problem you want to understand the problem 
first (and see the big picture). But I think it's a rather bad idea to find a 
computational problem and then start thinking about learning how to programm. 
Picking up your car analogy: I wouldn't ask a designer to actually build a car - 
i'd much prefer a mechanical engineer to do that job. 

Also most computational problems are not entirely novel and it helps a lot to have
reasonable background in common algorithms and techniques in the relevant field.

What I like about bioinformatics is that a lot of knowledge from both biology 
and computerscience is required to tackle real problems. Neither of those sciences 
alone is up to the task...

cu
	Philipp


-- 
Dr. Philipp Pagel
Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology         phone: (203) 785-6835	
SHM, B117                                               fax:   (203) 785-4951
Yale University
333 Cedar ST
New Haven, CT 06520
USA