[BiO BB] Advanced web query interfaces for biological databases

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Hi Mike,

Mike Marchywka wrote:
> 
> There is also a trivial but annoying limitation with some GUI-only sites
> that you can't post a link ( in a forum like this) to a particular result
> and you need to write a paragraph explaining how to find some simple
> thing like a particular article or molecule. 
> A simple API based on http GET requests normally lends itself to tractable link creation. 

The annoyance may be trivial, but the problem isn't.  This is a major problem with "Web 2.0" approaches.  And, as a programmer, you're very much limited in your use of GET: multiple step forms (e.g., wizards) and form inputs that accept large datasets (e.g., textarea tags) can't easily be placed/replicated in a single URI.  You'll end up needing to store steps and data somewhere.  But, if the endpoint is all that matters, simply store the results in a temporary file and link to that.

Cheers,
Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro
Bioinformatics Organization, Inc. (Bioinformatics.Org)
E-mail: jeff at bioinformatics.org
Phone:  +1 978 562 4800
--