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[{"authors":null,"categories":null,"content":"Molecular biologist, bioinformatician\nHello, there! I’m Thyago. I’m a molecular biologist passionate about cutting-edge research, bioinformatics, and gene editing! I’m a strong advocate for open(science, data, source), and reproducible research. My main goal is to use molecular biology and computational/statistical tools to understand biological phenomena and translate these into human health. At the same time, I also work with translational research to foster advanced therapies. During my graduation I worked mainly with transcriptomics, genomics and molecular biology, both wet and dry benches, applied to infectious diseases (mainly leprosy and tuberculosis). Currently, I\u0026rsquo;m working on CRISPR-based epigenetic reprogramming for treating neurodegenerative diseases.\nMy most frequently used programming languages are R (stats, data wrangling, data viz.), Python 3 (snakemake pipelines, automation, machine learning) and Bash/Zsh (automation, linux management). I’m also beginner with C++ and Rust.\nIn my free time I enjoy reading, meditating, oil painting, hiking, music, pets, and learning new stuff.\n","date":-62135596800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"term","lang":"en","lastmod":1702993684,"objectID":"2525497d367e79493fd32b198b28f040","permalink":"/author/thyago-leal-calvo/","publishdate":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","relpermalink":"/author/thyago-leal-calvo/","section":"authors","summary":"Molecular biologist, bioinformatician\nHello, there! I’m Thyago. I’m a molecular biologist passionate about cutting-edge research, bioinformatics, and gene editing! I’m a strong advocate for open(science, data, source), and reproducible research. My main goal is to use molecular biology and computational/statistical tools to understand biological phenomena and translate these into human health.","tags":null,"title":"Thyago Leal Calvo","type":"authors"},{"authors":["Thyago Leal Calvo"],"categories":["advice"],"content":"Beginners in bioinformatics or curious alike often ask me this question. Perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s popular because there are several programming languages currently in use, or because they want to make sure they learn the right one.\nMost of the time, my answer is: what problems are you going to solve?\nThe thing is, bioinformatics and computational biology are very diverse, both in their application as well as roles one can have. I agree with others1 that organize the field and its people into training categories. For this quick post purposes, I divide them into two main ones:\nusers/analysts and scientists; developers/engineers. If you\u0026rsquo;re only going to do data analysis/data mining and mostly use bioinformatics/computational biology as a toolset, then you\u0026rsquo;re better off learning scripting languages and niche-specific languages, such as Python, R, Ruby, and/or Bash. Additionally, depending on your specific role, query languages like SQL may be necessary. Please, note that structural bioinformaticians usually deal with different languages and tools compared to those involved in sequence analysis and phylogeny, for example. Still, knowledge of some general-purpose languages, like Python and Ruby, is helpful.\nWhen you are a bioinformatics developer or engineer, the situation is a whole lot different. If you are only working with programs lightweight on resources, maybe you won\u0026rsquo;t even need lower-level languages. But, if you need speed, memory efficiency, integration with operating systems or hardware, complex graphic user interfaces (GUI), you must invest in learning C, C++, Rust or Java, for example. Each has its advantages and drawbacks, but they are solid initial choices for those needs.\nIn case you\u0026rsquo;re going to develop web tools, other languages may also be used, like Javascript, HTML, CSS and PHP, for example.\nConclusion There\u0026rsquo;s no point in entering language wars\u0026hellip; People usually pet their languages and disregard their limitations, don\u0026rsquo;t go that way. Programming languages are tools, use them in your favor and pay attention to their weaknesses and strengths, always thinking about what\u0026rsquo;s the right one for the job. Also, it\u0026rsquo;s helpful to see what\u0026rsquo;s the de facto in applications similar to what you need, and it\u0026rsquo;s a good idea to follow academy/industry/employer needs. Most of the time, you can do pretty much anything regardless of the language. Of course, it is a lot easier to plot something in R than in C++; conversely, it may take some time to do some calculations in pure R that are fast in C or FORTRAN.\nGood luck and enjoy the ride!\nWelch et al., 2014; Plos Comput Bio. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003496\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":1622160000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1622210512,"objectID":"c2c42945e80ad369fe18aee1a520899c","permalink":"/post/programming-languages/which-programming-languages-should-i-learn/","publishdate":"2021-05-28T00:00:00Z","relpermalink":"/post/programming-languages/which-programming-languages-should-i-learn/","section":"post","summary":"Beginners in bioinformatics or curious alike often ask me this question. Perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s popular because there are several programming languages currently in use, or because they want to make sure they learn the right one.","tags":["programming-languages"],"title":"Which programming languages should I learn?","type":"post"}]