[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#702916: Package description: data bank or database?

[Justin B Rye]

Martin Eberhard Schauer wrote:
> are you sure the package descriptions are what you intended to say?
> 
>    Package: biomaj

Oh, yes - these and biomaj-watcher passed through d-l-e a year ago:
 https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/2011/12/msg00036.html
 https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/2012/01/msg00005.html

>    Description: biological data-bank updater
>     BioMAJ downloads remote data banks, checks their status and applies
>     transformation workflows, with consistent state, to provide ready-to-use
>     data for biologists and bioinformaticians. For example, it can transform
>     original FASTA files into BLAST indexes. It is very flexible and its
>     post-processing facilities can be extended very easily.

Strictly speaking the d-l-e "house style" would say there should be a
comma after "status" (it "downloads X, checks Y, and applies Z").  But
I'd be more confident with my suggestions if I knew just what it means
for "transformation workflows" to have "consistent state".
 
>    Package: biomaj-properties
>    Description: biological data-bank updater - example properties files
>     This package contains a set of data bank properties files that can be
>     used as examples for BioMAJ. It contains descriptions for many existing
>     data banks with or without workflows to transform data. Some files may
>     require additional programs (such as BLAST) for post-processing.

Likewise, I don't 100% follow what "with or without workflows to
transform data" is talking about; I'm hoping it makes sense to
bioinformaticians.

> I wonder what a "data bank" is. Did you intentionally use it instead of
> database?

The original versions talked about "banks" (and in particular "bank
properties", which sounded as if it was talking about land owned by
financial institutions).  It struck me as odd, too, but it seems to be
the jargon of the field - the upstream docs all talk about "(data)
banks", and some other sources agree with them (though some prefer
"database" or "knowledgebase").

"Data bank" does have one advantage over "database": it's obviously
talking about a repository of biological data, and not a database like
MySQL (the package, the executable, or the running process).
 
> The first sentence of the long description for biomaj-properties also sounds
> strange to me.

That's my fault.  If your amended version is still accurate then I
agree that it sounds better.
-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package