Academic software has a bad reputation for being poorly maintained. We discuss our experiences maintaining our own bioinformatics tools and the systemic issues that influence the quality of academic software.

Topics

* Lessons we've learned from maintaining our 8+ year old tools: Ginkgo, Assemblytics, SplitThreader, Ribbon.

* Discussing career implications and systemic incentives of maintaining academic software.

* How we build bioinformatics web apps today versus when we first started out.

* Supporting users when you're not even in that field anymore.

* Lots of embarrassing stories of bad software engineering in bioinformatics tools.

Join the discussion in the comments on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eyd7Cb7ueNg

* For academics, do any other metrics get considered for your tools other than citations?

* How do you cite tools you used that you didn't mention in the methods, e.g. samtools, parallel, IGV.

* Do any programs match up volunteer experienced software engineers with scientists writing software?

Where to find us online:

https://omgenomics.com