News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Autocorrect errors in Excel still creating genomics headache by qayxc on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @05:20AM (#28219113)
What really interests me is why your field is still using untyped CSV data for exchanging information, instead of say XML.

And why hasn't there been a collaboration between professionals to fix this on an organisational level (like agreeing on a spreadsheet template or sane method for data exchange)?

Is it really every lab for themselves with MS Excel and CSV of all things being the lowest common denominator?

Re:Autocorrect errors in Excel still creating genomics headache by acomjean on Thursday August 19, 2021 @08:26AM (#28232906)
File sizes are an issue and xml won’t help. The file formats are wierd (fasta?) but they are at least kinda standard.

There are groups dedicated to organizing/ annotating genes. They’re quite organized and have highly structured databases.

http://gmod.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Chado

A lot of the model orgainism species have gotten together to make thinks more uniform.

https://www.alliancegenome.org/

Also most people in this field are using free software.