The 11th Annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) 2010 is coming up in Boston, July 9-10 2010. The BOSC meetings are a great get-together of a community of programmers who are like-minded in their advocacy of open source code for science, and specifically for bioinformatics. The whole thing is run by volunteers who take a lot of time and effort to bring a top-notch meeting every year, so a big thanks to this year’s organizing committee!
If you are reading this, and you are in Boston on those dates, consider showing up, it is a great experience. There will also be a codefest on the two days before the meeting. This year’s topic is cloud computing for bioinformatics. If you like using AWS for bioinformatics or if you want to learn more, this is your chance. Amazon have provided a grant towards this codefest. (Thanks!) Biopython, Bioperl, Biojava and Bioruby developers will all be there, tailoring code to the cloud.
Which brings me to the latest poll: if you are a bioinformatics programmer, which of the Bio* packages are you using in your programming, if any? If more than one, check the one you use most frequently. Poll answers on the right. As with all Internet polls, you must be crazy if you take it at all seriously.