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Bioinformatics models and approaches are then built on this data, which can then explain

entirely new levels and answer questions, such as how our brain and consciousness func­

tion, or model global problems and master global digitalisation. Starting with simple bio­

informatics applications and calculations, these examples show a global context. Another

way to globally integrate bioinformatics and your own results is the WikiMedia Foundation,

especially Wikipedia (everyone can and should co-edit if they can contribute knowledge to

a term). But it also makes sense to get familiar with the WikiMedia infrastructure, e.g.

Wikidata (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page) and Query Service

(https://query.wikidata.org).

19.6

Introduction to Programming (Meta Tutorial)

Our book does not focus on programming. This is because we are initially concerned with

the fascination of the topics, all of which can be dealt with using bioinformatics, and

because we have had more and more bioinformatics software on the net since about 1995.

So the difficulty is rather to keep track of the different possibilities of analysis and to use

the right software.

Nevertheless, it is quite typical for bioinformaticians, after they have become suffi­

ciently familiar with their field, to program new software themselves, which then searches

for exactly the motifs that interest them, or a database with exactly the data that they are

investigating in detail, or a model, for example of a signal cascade. For this reason, we

have compiled introductory materials here for readers fascinated by programming.

The areas in which writing your own programs for bioinformatics can happen are

already clear from the book:

• Collect and store data (i.e. build your own database),

• Examine/analyze data (i.e., write programs in the strictest sense),

• Understand (or model) data.

Every program works the same way. After a header part, where the variables are declared,

the actual program starts: There is a read-in part (e.g. all sequences), a main loop (process­

ing part for the calculations/tests), which can call further loops, and the output part (dis­

plays the calculation/results).

Collect and Store Data

A common task in bioinformatics would be to set up a web server yourself (https://perl­

webserver.sourceforge.net; https://sourceforge.net/projects/perlwebserver/files/perlweb­

server/). It is equally important to set up a database yourself (https://perlmaven.com/

simple-­database-­access-­using-­perl-­dbi-­and-­sql). Depending on the needs and require­

ments, knowledge of common programming languages such as SQL, HTML and Java is

necessary. However, there are helpful tutorials and ready-made scripts for this, which can

19.6  Introduction to Programming (Meta Tutorial)