I think there's something to be said for promoting tools that are built to handle a specific format. It's one thing if Joe User has a surprise one day when sed breaks their music library index, but something else if health data is corrupted. Good answers here would at least warn of the limitations of line-based approaches and, better, show how to install & use the custom-built tool.
I'm actually considering a Meta question on the subject, because I think it'd be useful for the site, but I've learned that my first ideas aren't often the best :)
yeah that is very valid. Q/As here are not just for the asker but for every person that stumbles across that question in the future and they shouldn't see the wrong way to do something without some sort of disclaimer
My experience is that sysadmins are reluctant to install anything new (though perhaps only things that they don't know about), that they think they'll be expected to maintain it. And also solve breakages.
Though this was in universities, where they pay people poorly. So perhaps they also were not well motivated.
@FaheemMitha Well, I would expect a system administrator to install the utilities needed by their users, and to make sure that that software is kept up to date. It's not impossible to do and is part of what a system administrator is supposed to do.
@FaheemMitha I work for a university. Our system admins are paid as much as I am and more.
@PrabhjotSingh OK. Too many things to do. Do you have an opinion about the Oxford/AZ vaccine (Covishield) vs the Bharat Tech vaccine (Covaxin)? Specifically, are you at all familiar with the clinical data?
@PrabhjotSingh Yes, I noticed. No idea why. But stock prices do inexplicable things all the time. That's why people buying options are brave. Either that, or foolhardy.
@PrabhjotSingh It's funny, but all the brokerages raised their estimates for Cipla, even as the stock took a dive.
Of course, a separate question is whether one can trust the Bharat Biotech data, since it's probably generated entirely in India.
@PrabhjotSingh Are you familiar with the clinical data?
It was suggested to me that if one hasn't taken any vaccine shots, it's better to go with the Bharat Biotech one, because per the Indian Govt rules one only has to wait a month between shots. As apposed to 12 weeks for Oxford.
@FaheemMitha No, I asked some people about side effects, contraindications and so forth. But no one answered my questions. I have no data about vaccinations.
The Intercept article is quite good and quite detailed. I find that journal articles published outside India are usually better choices. The domestic press is mostly a joke.
@αғsнιη Yeah, what Jeff said. I actually had no idea it stood for Gene Transfer Format, a name that makes no sense at all. I suspect that is wrong. But in any case, it is a tab-delimited format commonly used to store gene annotations.
Yeah, gene feature I knew. But what the hell does gene transfer mean?
@Kusalananda Heh, yes, I tend to call them GFF since that's what I was used to before they changed it. It has something to do with the extra, structured fields in the GTF where GFF was much freer, I think.
