Seq is a programming language for computational genomics and bioinformatics. With a Python-compatible syntax and a host of domain-specific features and optimizations, Seq makes writing high-performance genomics software as easy as writing Python code, and achieves performance comparable to (and in many cases better than) C/C++.

Source code is available on GitHub. You can also learn more about Seq from our paper or by visiting our Gitter chatroom.

Frequently Asked Questions¶

What is the goal of Seq?

One of the main focuses of Seq is to bridge the gap between usability and performance in the fields of bioinformatics and computational genomics, which have an unfortunate reputation for hard-to-use, buggy or generally poorly-written software. Seq aims to make writing high-performance genomics or bioinformatics software substantially easier, and to provide a common, unified framework for the development of such software.

Why do we need a whole new language? Why not a library?

There are many great bioinformatics libraries on the market today, including Biopython for Python, SeqAn for C++ and BioJulia for Julia. In fact, Seq offers a lot of the same functionality found in these libraries. The advantages of having a domain-specific language and compiler, however, are the higher-level constructs and optimizations like Pipelines, Sequence matching, Inter-sequence alignment and Genomic index prefetching, which are difficult to replicate in a library, as they often involve large-scale program transformations/optimizations. A domain-specific language also allows us to explore different backends like GPU, TPU or FPGA in a systematic way, in conjunction with these various constructs/optimizations, which is ongoing work.

What about interoperability with other languages and frameworks?

Interoperability is and will continue to be a priority for the Seq project. We don’t want using Seq to render you unable to use all the other great frameworks and libraries that exist. Seq already supports interoperability with C/C++ and Python (see C/C++ and Python interoperability), which we are in the process of expanding (e.g. by allowing Python libraries to be written in Seq).

I want to contribute! How do I get started?

Great! Check out our contribution guidelines and open issues to get started. Also don’t hesitate to drop by our Gitter chatroom if you have any questions.

What is planned for the future?

See the roadmap for information about this.