Mother Nature

Many great human activities and inventions were inspired by nature in the history and computer science is no exception. In this contribution, Charles expresses an idea that is inspired by the Nature. He compares the program generation (a method that should bridge the wide gap between problem description and its solution and also a method that Intentional Software aims at) to DNA - a description (of a problem) that Nature uses to generate whole human being (the solution). This comparison is a good one, I believe. The only thing that remains is to find the right enzymes producing healthy individuals and no rejects.

Speaking of inspiration by Nature, there are other ideas concerning computer science. Although the Recapitulation theory is being abandoned lately, the connection between Ontogeny and Phylogeny undeniably remains.

If we compared the evolution of programming to Phylogeny and an evolution of one program to Ontogeny, we would get a simmilar connection. If the Ontogeny copies some steps of Phylogeny (as the Recapitulation theory claims), does it mean that in different stages of one program development, its authors should use different styles of programming? Should we start with very basic elements, then design fundamental procedures, create modules and finally use objects and find cross-cutting concerns? Or does it mean that in every well-written more complex program a different programming styles will inevitably appear?