[mclin]

Rather than building these data analysis/visualization programs from scratch each time, my thought is that scientists should instead be writing them as modules for a data workflow application like RapidMiner.

If you haven't heard of RapidMiner, you basically edit a flowchart where each step takes inputs and outputs, eg take some data and make a histogram, or perform a clustering analysis.

Video of someone demoing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNESlvXp47E

This way, the scientists can focus on the algorithms and not have to worry about all the other details of creating useable, maintainable software.

[ak217]

In bioinformatics, Galaxy (http://galaxy.psu.edu/) is a much better alternative.

[droz]

Do you know of any other good data analysis applications similar to RapidMiner?

[mclin]

I don't know any first hand, but other's I've heard of: Taverna: http://taverna.org.uk/ Trident: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/tc/trident.mspx

[bugsbunnyak]

Knime http://www.knime.org/.

To a lesser (but free) extent, Orange http://orange.biolab.si/