The Tool-Builders

Sandra Porter draws the distinction between bioinformaticists or bioinformatics programmers and people who use the tools the others create. "The tool builders are the programmers, architects, computational biologists, and computer scientists who write new algorithms, create databases, and build software systems. The tool users are the biologists," she writes. Porter then points to a recent PLoS Computational Biology education piece in which Joel Dudley and Atul Butte give tips on honing bioinformatics programming skills. They write that "the most fundamental and versatile tools in your technology toolbox are programming languages" and they also point out the importance of knowing UNIX and parallel programming.