Just like in our DNA...

[Michael Vanier]

> From: Charles G Waldman <cgw at fnal.gov>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 11:06:04 +0200 (MET DST)
> Cc: python-list at cwi.nl
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
> 
> Michael Vanier writes:
> 
>  > With all due respect to Guido, who is usually the most low-key no-bullshit
>  > person on the planet, the statement about DNA is a beautiful example of
>  > marketing-speak.  I thought I was reading an interview with Steve Jobs for
>  > a second :-)  Guido, did they slip something into your coffee? ;-)
> 
> Do you know anything about so-called "Junk DNA"?  To me, Guido's quote
> seems like a perfectly apt analogy for what one of my former
> co-workers liked to call "surgical code adhesions".  It's not like
> he's dropping some pointless reference to some pie-in-the-sky
> technology like DNA-based computing.  It's simply an analogy drawn
> from outside the world of computer science, which shows that somehow,
> in addition to writing and maintaining Python and other software, and
> answering numerous silly and not-so-silly questions on this newsgroup,
> he manages to stay well-informed about a wide variety of subjects.
> 

Actually, yes, I know something about junk DNA (I have a degree in
molecular biology).  To the best of my knowledge (please correct me,
anyone, if I'm wrong) no one has ever proved that so-called junk DNA serves
no function whatsoever, although it isn't transcribed into proteins --
e.g. it may have some role in maintaining the structural integrity of
chromosomes during cell division etc.  My point is that the analogy is not
as sound as it appears, and for that reason, I suppose, it tweaked my
internal bogo-meter, something that Guido has never even come *close* to
doing before.

Interestingly, I found another computer/DNA quote in the book "ANSI Common
Lisp" by Paul Graham, describing the extensibility of lisp:

  "Like DNA, such a language does not go out of style."

This is yet more marketing-speak, of course, which detracts from an
otherwise excellent book.

Mike