Re: Prediction of local code modifications

"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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