in browsing ResearchGate ;)

Dear Venkatesh Rajamanickam

if you do that then you would be a bit away from the main objective of bioinformatics, to obtain knowledge from the data analysis. don't you think?

Exactly.. That is what I meant by waste of time.. I need to install different packages myself in order to get my analysis/pipeline up and running. This is also something most people do as far as I have seen.

I do the same, but in an initial stage when i need to ensure all the pipeline, after that i focus mainly in the data. I don't need to reconfigure my pipeline frequently.

in browsing ResearchGate ;)

Dealing with System Administrator :)

Installing packages hasn't been my waste of time yet. I encounter most of my time being used for file formatting and reordering big data. Its not waste though but it takes up most of the time of any analysis and it so feels that primary aim of bioinformatician is to change file formats

Mess of tools for one aspects so confused which used or which not :)

Parsing, filtering and writing extremely inefficient ascii file formats.

I´m sure this happens just in the firsts months of working with bioinformatic things, when you have all the programs you need (and you like and you know how to use them moreorless), it`s not necessary to actualize too frequently. If you continue downloading and looking for new versions or new software, you could be trapped in an endless road, be careful.

I think my bigger waste of time is when i pass days analyzing a pathway or a GO term for a condition and finally i conclude that there is not enough evidence, i hate that! jajaja, I love my job!

@adda: I agree with you.. But it is very frustrating atleast for first few months.. That happened with me too.. I find anything other that analyzing the data as waste of time.. which includes changing file formats, installing softwares (sometimes you end up installing a software and get it running which cannot answer your reseach question) etc.,