11–20 of 163 posts
As CPU excess increases, I guess I've always thought that eventually code blocks could be grown using genetics inspired algorithmic processes that could just try everything possible until something works well.
Isn't this just Prolog?
OP here. It's not just Prolog, but indeed Prolog is the closest thing now.
At the very least, a constraint programming language would be a good basis to start with here.
As CPU excess increases, I guess I've always thought that eventually code blocks could be grown using genetics inspired algorithmic processes that could just try everything possible until something works well.
The system was an "animator" for formal specifications called Possum: http://ww2.cs.mu.oz.au/~tmill/tgf/index.html
Possum would allow you to directly execute a program that was formally defined using the Sum formal specification language. While it was not able to handle every possibility, I found using it to be a really magical experience.
However, in practical terms, the idea of declarative programming has just as many difficulties as ordinary programming: how do you know your specification is correct? how do you debug a logical expression? how do you know your specification matches what you want it to do?
Dear Jon: What you have is fabulous and immediately useful: You are describing a language for describing constraints on the results of computer programs. In other words, you can express the correctness of a computer program and check whether a program is, in fact, correct. It’s true that IF a sufficiently smart compiler could infer a working program from the definition of correctness, no further “programming” would b…
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Introduction_to_QuickChec...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP here. It's not just Prolog, but indeed Prolog is the closest thing now.
How is it not just prolog? At the very least, a constraint programming language would be a good basis to start with here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constraint_programming
http://web.mac.com/ben_moseley/frp/paper-v1_01.pdf
They say that the only essential complexity is the one inherent to the problem the program is trying to solve. Everything else is just here because we haven't yet found the methodology or invented the tools to battle it.
They also describe an ideal world, where all the programming is done in way of declarative programming - what you want the code to do, and not how to do it.
As CPU excess increases, I guess I've always thought that eventually code blocks could be grown using genetics inspired algorithmic processes that could just try everything possible until something works well.
To use the language of the op, it will be composed of many discrete simple assertions that excruciatingly specify the output.