[Biodevelopers] bioinformatics and .NET

[Patrick McConnell]

It seems to me that .NET is great for applications but somewhat poor for
libraries because it is tied to Windows.  Why not develop the libraries in
C++ and the applications that use the libraries in .NET?  You can easily
expose C++ code to .NET, Java, Perl, etc.  Also, C++ will run faster than
.NET because it is unmanaged.

-Patrick





"Margolin, Adam" <margolia at wharton.upenn.edu>@bioinformatics.org on
05/27/2003 12:21:36 PM

Please respond to biodevelopers at bioinformatics.org

Sent by:    biodevelopers-admin at bioinformatics.org


To:    <biodevelopers at bioinformatics.org>
cc:

Subject:    [Biodevelopers] bioinformatics and .NET

At the risk of sounding heretical, I think that .NET could an excellent
environment for developing bioinformatics applications.  The platform is
designed for interoperability between different languages, and you can
write in Perl, C++, and C# all in the same environment.  I am doubtful that
this will catch on due to other factors, but if a Bio C# project does begin
please keep me informed.

We might also want to look into the possibilities of 1) using the .NET tool
that converts Java to C# (although people may raise objection to this)  2)
Creating something like Bio .NET by compiling a (perhaps already existing)
bioinformatics library to .NET byte code that can then be accessed by any
.NET supported language.

Does anybody have any thoughts on what Microsoft's role with be in
bioinformatics?

-Adam