Re: Data (and OTHER) "Integrity" Issues at ADM

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 3183

Posted by ureadit
2005-05-05 01:13:06

Writing code is very error-prone. Even for good programmers. Even relatively simple code, such as Excel Visual Basic. A simple typo in English, French, or whatever language usually is of no great consequence, but in code it can be insidious or devastating. Also, a “small” change in one place may cause real problems elsewhere. (Not to mention that the compiler may be buggy!) Anyone who has done programming of any significance will also freely admit that when the programmer thinks that 20 minutes have past, it has actually been hours: Extreme concentration and care is needed to write decent code. In over 30 years of working with computer programs, and sometimes creating them myself, there was only one program in which I never found a bug.

And as an aside: DNA code appears to be very much like not-so-well-written computer code. Thus, there is cause for great care when DNA is manipulated. A change in one sequence may interact with other sequences in unexpected and not-very-pleasant ways.

-sc

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