Computing From Creationism to Evolutionism
summary
Argues software origin stories range from instant creationism (pen‑and‑paper one‑liners, assembler) through intelligent design (waterfall, flowcharts, layered toolchains, UML, CI, types, contracts) to natural selection (version control, pull requests, incremental builds, genetic algorithms, ML, artificial life exemplified by AlphaGo). Claims an IBM study finds ~30% of code handles saving/restoring data. Recommends shifting viewpoint to changes and selection to pick durable, evolutionarily stable tools and investments.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (30)
- 0:00Introduction
- 6:37Software Defects
- 8:35Better Storage
- 9:37Layer Creation
- 10:21Waterfall Process
- 11:02Fossils
- 11:25Intelligent Design
- 18:05Humility
- 19:08Lamarckism
- 21:53SuperNatural Selection
- 23:41Logical Evolution
- 24:59Natural Selection
- 27:11Viruses
- 28:04Software
- 29:43Man is not God
- 31:45Realistic metatools
- 33:58There is no silver bullet
- 35:05Evolution is an inside job
- 36:37Tools for the Evolution Insider
- 38:00Conclusion
- 39:02The Truth Project
- 42:25Neural Networks
- 42:37Computers as Agents
- 44:20Artificial Intelligence
- 45:59Learning
- 46:26Thinking
- 51:06Good Point of View
- 52:11Advice for the Young
- 53:34Find your niche
- 55:01Better stories for better software
related talks
22mShifting Left, Shifting Right
01h 05mSoftware As Biology
51mHow does Nature code?
35mCraft, Engineering, and the Essence of Programming
41mHow We Tell Stories In Code
37mKeynote The Evolution of Evolutionary Architecture
47mLearning from Nature or what biological systems can teach software engineers
49mCultures of Programming