Dr. Dobb's | The Usefulness of Mutant Code

The Usefulness of Mutant Code

In The Usefulness of Broken Glasses, I speculated on using the topological concept of continuity to design a language in which small deformations would do less harm to programs than they do in existing languages — or at least, would make the effects of the harm easier to predict. I don't think anybody has tried this (it would be a fascinating exercise in topological semantics). But there is a machine code designed to adapt to mutation. You can spray bit-flips through its memory, and often, programs will still do the right thing, more or less. It's the machine code of Thomas Ray's Artificial Life simulator, Tierra.

September 27, 2009
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/the-usefulness-of-mutant-code/228700654