Hello, World!
Manifesto for Between Bits and Nucleotides
A “Hello, world!” program is usually the first piece of code you write when learning any programming language. This is because it is very simple but, at the same time, powerful enough to teach you the basic function of a computer program: communication with humans. I am a kind of geeky guy that can write some code in different languages without mastering any of them, I am a Biologist after all. With this background I cannot imagine a better way to introduce a new blogging initiative than starting by a “Hello, World!” post.
The reasons for this publication
I must admit that I really dislike writing. Specially writting in English, that is not my primary language. My proficiency in English is quite far from that supposed for a science postdoc, as you already should notice. So, why am I writing in a place like Medium (Clearly focused to writters, journalist, social media experts and those people with great communication capabilities)? Well, I am not sure of the answer, but probably I need to go out of my comfort zone, and share some thoughts and experiences that perhaps could be useful to people like me. I already have a couple of blogs (in Spanish) elsewhere but I’m not writing regularly on them. Medium seems the perfect medium to start the process of write more, as it is simple and distraction-less. Just write in a minimalist way, a way I am adopting in several aspects of my life.
But, why write in English? The answer could be obvious if I say that my background lies in the field of Computational Biology (whatever that means) and, as I said before, I want to share, in this publication, some thoughts related to my activity as postdoc researcher. So, a priori, the main target of this publication would be people involved in biology, bioinformatics, computer science, data science and related fields. In fewer words, scientists and academics. Given that, English is a must. I am not really afraid of writing in English. I already write a lot of content in English for conferences, papers, webs, e-mails,… but my language capabilities are quite limited in English and I need a lot of effort (and editions) to communicate in English. In fact, I neither be a good communicator in my own language. Thus, why to invest this effort and time in publishing in English? This post of Cristina Juesas summarizes the reasons very well. I think the profit would be worthwhile, sure!.
Expectations
What can readers expect of this publication? Just a couple of thoughts from a geek about biology, genomics, computers, programming and things like that. Some of them could be technical enough to be very targeted for people working on similar fields as I do, but generally I will try to be more broadly scoped. A disclaimer here: this is not intended to be an outreach publication. Although I could explain carefully some concepts this won’t be the general rule.
Finally, what are my own expectations? First, do not get bored of it. I know I will not be very prolific, but maybe I can deal with a story or two per month. Then, I hope some of you could be interested in what I write and give some feedback. Given the great tools provided by Medium, I would be very grateful if you make some comments when my language errors make difficult the reading of stories as well as I state something wrong. At the end, I just want to have fun by writing some ideas, trying to be useful to someone and learn a lot of your feedback. I hope this is the beginning of a long lasting interaction.
