Re: [Treebase-devel] ABI proposal for phyloinformatics

[Roderic P. <r....@bi...>]

+1 for JSON

JSON is clearly the way to go for moving data around on the web. XML has some advantages for writing structured documents, so I see a place for NeXML, but OMG can it be verbose. If you want broader developer engagement, JSON is great (but please, please not some hideous XML -> JSON conversion)

-1 for Facebook/Myspace

IMHO both are pretty yucky interfaces. It's not about understanding Facebook/MySpace, it's about understanding what users need (not necessarily the same as what they say they want), and obeying the cardinal rule ("don't make me think").  I should be able to type in any old thing (taxon name, DOI, author) and have the software figure out what I mean and show me the trees. Simples.

0 for viz people

There is some cool stuff in visualisation, but it's very hard to get a visualisation that works (much easier to make it pretty). 90% of computer visualisation stuff is ultimately pretty but useless, IMHO. Ask yourself why Google search results are presented as a simple list (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijLDxgALc2c ). So, by all means engage with the visualisation crowd, but don't expect miracles. For my own (obviously biased) take on visualisation, see http://www.slideshare.net/rdmpage/phylogeny-vizbi-2011

Regards

Rod


---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
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