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There was a story yesterday about using genetic programming for automated debugging. Granted, its probably not putting out the best code in the world but if it

There was a story yesterday about using genetic programming for automated debugging. Granted, its probably not putting out the best code in the world but if it works isn't that what business is going to truly care about (maybe its the sliced bread of software development, in that it sucks compared to bread from a bakery but you can still make an edible sandwich from it) While debugging is only a part of the software development process, it seems like it creates an evolutionary path for automated development.

anonjon 17y ago
In that article, a programmer still had to input tests, I believe. So you could end up with fully-test driven development (requirements oriented?). I kind of doubt genetic programming is a way to fully automated development. Someone will always have to describe what it is that the computer should do.
jerf 17y ago
"Running the evolutionary process" has a small chance of being one of the ways I referred to that might involve us moving up the abstraction chain. However, someone will have to know how to tweak the genetic algorithms and feed them the right data. If you think it will ever be "just specify the problem and run the GA/GP", you are gravely mistaken. It is not that simple, and there will be ways of phrasing the problem that will make it easy for the GA and ways that are hard, and problems that GA will not be able to deal with at all. There will still be programmers. As I recently said in another post, the gulf between GP hype and GP reality is pretty much the largest I know of in the realm of computer science. There's a lot of very tricky theory, and my expectation is that this will never be a practical way to program (as opposed to fixing bugs), and even if it is, it will take a lot more knowledge and skill than a current programming job, which also means that fewer people will be able to do it. In my estimation, it will just plain be harder than writing it conventionally and thus never be practical.

anonjon 17y ago

In that article, a programmer still had to input tests, I believe. So you could end up with fully-test driven development (requirements oriented?). I kind of doubt genetic programming is a way to fully automated development. Someone will always have to describe what it is that the computer should do.

jerf 17y ago

"Running the evolutionary process" has a small chance of being one of the ways I referred to that might involve us moving up the abstraction chain. However, someone will have to know how to tweak the genetic algorithms and feed them the right data. If you think it will ever be "just specify the problem and run the GA/GP", you are gravely mistaken. It is not that simple, and there will be ways of phrasing the problem that will make it easy for the GA and ways that are hard, and problems that GA will not be able to deal with at all. There will still be programmers. As I recently said in another post, the gulf between GP hype and GP reality is pretty much the largest I know of in the realm of computer science. There's a lot of very tricky theory, and my expectation is that this will never be a practical way to program (as opposed to fixing bugs), and even if it is, it will take a lot more knowledge and skill than a current programming job, which also means that fewer people will be able to do it. In my estimation, it will just plain be harder than writing it conventionally and thus never be practical.