Genview and Gencode: a pair of programs to test theories of genetic code evolution

Genview and Gencode are tools for testing the adaptive nature of a genetic code under different assumptions about patterns of genetic error and the na ture of amino acid similarity. Genview provides a user friendly, point-and- click interface by which a user may reproduce and extend analysis of the ad aptive properties of the standard genetic code or any of its secondary deri vatives. Genview is a graphical user interface (GUI) program which runs on Linux, Unix (R) and Microsoft Windows (R) platforms and is based on the GTK + toolkit. Genview outputs ASCII configuration files which are interpreted by Gencode to perform an analysis. Gencode is available for the same platfo rms as Genview.