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It's really cool how, in a way, DNA is the source code of life. Except it's completely awful spaghetti code even compared to the worst computer code you've ever
by ufmace 12y ago
It's really cool how, in a way, DNA is the source code of life. Except it's completely awful spaghetti code even compared to the worst computer code you've ever seen, and we have only the vaguest idea of how the processor that's running it works. Imagine what we could do if we had the level of understanding and power over it that we had over computer code. I hope these guys are getting us just a little bit closer to that point.
Anybody wanna take a crack at refactoring the human DNA? Okay, we aren't anywhere near ready for that, but imagine if we were.
- jrapdx3 12y agoIf DNA is like source code, then it is really interesting the way one gene is unzipped in order to unlock other genes. Maybe it's a sort of encryption/decryption process, at the same time having the properties of a "program" running to perform actions on itself. That would make it the ultimate "self-modifying" system, which I imagine would be really hard to reason about and debug. Do you suppose DNA embodies the old idea that data is code and code data? Wouldn't it be something if the DNA scheme turned out to be sort of like Scheme. Apparently DNA is recursive in a sense, maybe it's also homoiconic. I'm going to stop here now, I'm starting to get myself very confused.