TITLE: Using Code to Document Lab Procedure
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: January 29, 2009  7:33 AM
DESC: 
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<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/misc/notebook.jpg"
     ALT="a lab notebook"
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I've been following the idea of
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_notebook_science">
   open notebook science</A>
for a while, both for its meaning to science and for
the technological need it creates.  Yesterday I read
Cameron Neylon's piece on a
<A HREF="http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2009/01/27/the-integrated-lab-record-or-the-web-native-lab-notebook/">
   web-native lab notebook</A>.
It was an interesting read, though it did contain a
single paragraph that ran for two pages...  After
he describes how to use a blog to organize an
integrated record of lab activities, he says:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
What we're left with is the procedures which after
all is the core of the record, right?  Well no.
Procedures are also just documents.  Maybe they are
text documents, but perhaps they are better expressed
as spreadsheets or workflows (or rather the record of
running a workflow).  Again these may well be better
handled by external services, be they word processors,
spreadsheets, or specialist services.  They just need
to be somewhere where we can point at them.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Procedures are, well, procedures.  It would be very
cool if we could help scientists record their procedures
as <EM>code</EM>.  Programs require more precision than
free-form text, which would make sharing scientific
procedures more reliable, and they support naturally
the distinction between static and dynamic presentation.
Neylon sees this opportunity when he talks about
recording a procedure as a workflow or as a record of
running one.

Just another wild-hair idea at the boundary where CS
meets people doing their work.
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