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Dos and Don'ts

As a first time user of any scientific software, it might be hard to navigate all options and features available.  It is not uncommon that one find out about these through a "trial-and-error" process, which is often alright.  However, sometimes you might end up doing ad hoc workarounds that are not really in line with the intendent philosophy of the aroma.* framework, and which may not be compatible with future version of the software.

In this section we collect as list short notes on "things to avoid", which can help you setup up you analysis scripts.

Do:

  • Write your scripts so that they can run "as is" on a different file system/operating system.   If you can run it elsewhere this way, you are following the "sustainability" philosophy of aroma - you can expect that your script will work in the future as well.

Don't:

  • Don't use paths anywhere in your analysis for accessing data sets.  If you find yourself using a path, you are probably doing something wrong.
  • Don't use text/ASCII CDF files (even if you try, the default is to give an error).  They are orders of magnitude slower to work with.  Instead convert it to a binary CDF.