The danger I see in teaching biology students how to program is that they are not, and don't want to be, good software engineers. And that's often worse then not knowing a thing about computers.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Combine a little programming knowledge with a lot of intellect and no small amount of arrogance due the proudly earned Ph.D in biology or chemistry or what ever and some VERY bad things can happen.
I've seen databases where 99% of the data was NULL, because the Chemistry Ph.D author couldn't be bothered with trivial details like what's a one to many relationship. Naturally it was MS Access.
Beware of bad software engineering, even more so if the person coding is otherwise brilliant. That's the most dangerous type.
Software is a very sharp sword, you should use it carefully not try to swing it as hard as you can.
Programming skills could also be useful, but then again maybe not. Read about Richard Dawkins' dangerous addiction: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/feb/03/weekend7.w...
The danger I see in teaching biology students how to program is that they are not, and don't want to be, good software engineers. And that's often worse then not knowing a thing about computers.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Combine a little programming knowledge with a lot of intellect and no small amount of arrogance due the proudly earned Ph.D in biology or chemistry or what ever and some VERY bad things can happen.
I've seen databases where 99% of the data was NULL, because the Chemistry Ph.D author couldn't be bothered with trivial details like what's a one to many relationship. Naturally it was MS Access.
Beware of bad software engineering, even more so if the person coding is otherwise brilliant. That's the most dangerous type.
Software is a very sharp sword, you should use it carefully not try to swing it as hard as you can.