I knew what he meant. Check the link, there are plenty of examples where program code *itself* is the "genome" being evolved.
See also:
www.genetic-programming.org (a source of information about the field of genetic programming and the field of genetic and evolutionary computation)Bibliography on Genetic Programming
Journal: "Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines"
Probably the grandaddy of all "evolving code" projects: Tierra
Modern "evolving code" project: Avida
And yes, it works also, contrary to the predictions of the anti-evolutionists.
These evolving codes have intelligent designers.
Take off your blinders.
Modern "evolving code" project: Avida
Put this down under *Just Damn*. Scooped again!
I was wondering ten years ago why people didn't do this.
As far as its relevance to biological evolution, your disputant will point out to the (however many) non-functional copies and say "See? That's what I said!" because what they had in mind was random mutations within a single copy.
You wouldn't mind helping me invest in lottery tickets so I'd have enough time to read this, the earlier articles on sulphide hotspots, etc. etc., would you? :-)
Probably the grandaddy of all "evolving code" projects: Tierra
Modern "evolving code" project: Avida
Just occurred to me.
If you tweaked an "evolving code" project, so that instead of random mutations to each copy of the code, the codes used genetic algorithms as the tool for modification, propagation, then...
if you ran across a bug you could really, truthfully say
"this f*cking code isn't working!"
BTW what do they do to debug the code, to make sure the parameters / values chosen for mutation rates, etc. are actually being followed?
Cheers!