Re: Prediction of local code modifications

Max Hailperin <max@gustavus.edu>
Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:40:17 -0500

          From comp.compilers

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From: Max Hailperin <max@gustavus.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:40:17 -0500
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 08-03-105 08-03-109 08-03-110
Keywords: history
Posted-Date: 29 Mar 2008 13:46:19 EDT

"preston.briggs@gmail.com" <preston.briggs@gmail.com> writes:


> On Mar 28, 3:44 am, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> Dynamic programming, ... First popularized by biologists comparing
>> protein sequences, it was then used by the unix 'diff' program...
>
> Biologists first? Naah.


I'll second that, but with a bit more by way of a reference. The
basic ideas of dynamic programming can actually be traced far back,
long before the name "dynamic programming" or the start of molecular
biology. But for the present purpose, it suffices to ask who gave it
recogized its importance sufficiently to give it the name "dynamic
programming," and when and why. For that, see Richard Bellman on the
Birth of Dynamic Programming, by Stuart Dreyfus,
http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~ami/cd/or50/1526-5463-2002-50-01-0048.pdf


The short version is that Richard Bellman named the technique at RAND
(a military think tank) in fall of 1950, choosing a name that "not
even a Congressman could object to." So far as I know, RAND was not
studying biology in 1950.


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