Time: Friday, June 3, 9:00 pm - noon; Monday, June 6, 9:00-noon
Place: Bioinformatics Computer Core Lab (Rm 104), Life Sciences Bldg
Organizer: Jeff Elhai
Audience: Primarily 1st year students

Goals of session

• Give you a worked out example of the power of programming to answer interesting questions
• Give you experience in writing simple programs in BioLingua
• Give you an overview of BioLingua

Outline of session (click on links to reach notes)

• No lecture unless you request one
• Discussion based on your responses to the following
  - Guided Tour: What are genes? (continued from Thursday)
  - Tutorial: BioLingua (click on link to help, then explore)
  - Notes: Working with large numbers of items (mapping / looping)
  - Notes: BioLingua Syntax
• Working on problems from Intro-to-Programming Problem Set
• (Optional) After lunch on Monday, a tutorial on programming, for those who want it

Possibly useful material

• Link to BioLingua: Main     Help     VCU logon     Stanford logon
• Sample text #1: text
• Sample text #2: text
• Sample text #3: text
• Problems: Syntax problems
• Problems: Loop problems

Before coming to the FIRST session (Friday)

• Please read the notes given above, BUT DON'T BURN YOURSELF OUT. Decide for yourself how much is useful and how much is too much.
  
• Please complete the short questionnaire (earlier the better but at least two hours before the session)

Before coming to the SECOND session (Monday)

• Sample a few of the syntax problems and look carefully at some of the loop problems.
• Please complete the REALLY SHORT questionnaire, giving me sufficient time to look at it BEFORE CLASS BEGINS! (otherwise, what's the point?)

• Please exhaust yourselves considering the syntax and loop problems so that we can reach completion on this last day.
  
• Please complete the REMARKABLY short questionnaire, considering (earlier the better but at least two hours before the session)

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