tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post610308984728173124..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Every program has bugs and every bug has a program!Anne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-62258454662569788652012-06-29T07:18:00.096-04:002012-06-29T07:18:00.096-04:00"Genomes are not computer programs. They work..."Genomes are not computer programs. They work very differently in many ways, and one of them is that they involve quantity as well as quality (they are not strictly 'Boolean')."<br /><br />" But in so many ways it is misleading to think of life in terms that would be familiar to C++ (or even Perl!) scribblers."<br /><br />Actually, they are totally programs and they totally do computations. Sure, they may not look like iPads, the computation is not in silico, and the code doesn't look like C++.<br /><br />It's still computation, though.<br /><br />Sure, the more exotic forms of computation and programming are not found in first year comp. sci. classes. That doesn't mean they don't exist or that they are not studied.<br /><br />In fact, computation, autocalibration and regulation are very important in biology and are things any biologist should know about. Few do, of course.<br /><br />A good place to start would be control theory on an intuitive level (i.e. before the complex numbers and the linear algebra). Talk to an engineer or check the wikipedia page.peterfireflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05050847835479172236noreply@blogger.com