Re: Prediction of local code modifications

Max Hailperin wrote:
> "preston.briggs@gmail.com" <preston.briggs@gmail.com> writes:
(snip)


>>Biologists first? Naah.


> I'll second that, but with a bit more by way of a reference.
(snip)


> 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.


In my post I had a reference to the wikipedia article referencing
Richard Bellman and his development of dynamic programming. But how
many people read Bellman's paper and started implementing such
algorithms in the 1950's?


It was Needleman-Wunsch that introduced it to biology, and
Smith-Waterman that made it even more popular.


The unix 'diff' program dates from the early 1970's:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diff


While Needleman-Wunsch, J Mol Biol. 48(3), was 1970. It is my
understanding, though I don't have a direct reference right now, that
diff, around 1974, referenced Needleman-Wunsch for the algorithm.


Now, how many people have read the Needleman-Wunsch and Smith-Waterman
papers compared to Bellman's?


Computer science conferences on pattern matching algorithms are
dominated by papers on biological applications, and rarely do
you see applications to compilers.


-- glen
[For diff history, see http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/diff.ps which
does indeed reference Needleman and Wunsch. -John]

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