My Stanford-developed Symbolic BioComputing (in BioLisp) course is now
released for public experimentation and comment. The course runs live
via the web in the BioBike environment, and can be run through the
BioBike Demo Server.
The BioBike Demo server is accessible via: www.biobike.org (under
"registered BioBike servers"). The course is organized as a set of Live
Tutorials. Once you log in to the demo server (after agreeing to the
legalese -- no registration required!) pull down Help > Live Tutorials
at the bottom of the page.
When you click on a tutorial link it will try to open in a new window
(if you have pop-ups blocked, you might have to hold the Ctrl key to
allow this). You'll want to put the tutorial page someplace where it
doesn't entirely overlap the BioBike listener; when you press the
"DoIt" buttons in the tutorial, it will execute (Do) the indicated
computation (It) in the BioBike listener window. This takes a moment to
get used to, and is a little clunky on a small screen... Hopefully you
have fairly large screen, although you can always just swap back and
forth.
(The reason for this odd interaction method is that you can
independently scroll the listener versus the tutorial. Because the
BioBike server is live, you can explore and experiment with what you're
learning, instead of just watching the tutorial go by like a television
program. This becomes critical in doing the exercises! We recommend
FireFox, although I actually use IE because FireFox is so buggy and
slow, however, some minor things won't work in IE. These are noted in
the body of the tutorials.)
Some of the latter tutorials are in flux, but many are complete. As
always, I'd appreciate any feedback.
Thanks!
Cheers,
'Jeff