Bioinfo Blog!

Today I have presented an introductory talk on makefiles to the people in my group.

Make is a tool to define pipelines of shell commands: if you find yourself messed up with too many python/perl/bash/R scripts, and you don’t know how to organize them, make is a standard and easy way for the task (better than a wrapper script).

You can find the slides of the talk on slideshare, along with the others:

I think that the best approach to learn make is to start using it in the simplest way possible: forget about the prerequisite stuff and the special variables/functions, just write simple rules with a target name and a series of commands.

This does not make use of all of the make’s functionalities, but it is clear and easy to use.

Now I am very happy! I have presented a talk on makefile for the first time in my life. This is one of the most nerd-ish thing I have done ever!!