• Question: Dear Jodi, How can methods from evolutionary biology be used to classify computer programs?

    Asked by NRM2468 to Jodi on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Jodi Schneider

      Jodi Schneider answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Good question — I didn’t know this either!

      Evolutionary biologists study the family relationships between different plants & animals. They explain how humans have evolved from apes, for instance, or why species like kangaroos exist only in one place.

      Computer systems are a tiny bit like people: when you copy a program and make a small change, you’ve created a “daughter” or “son” program, that is similar to, but not exactly the same as its parent.

      So it’s these family relationships that can be used to study programs. Similar computer programs are clustered together to find the families.

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