

Tiny, Vast Windows into Human DNA - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/science/human-fly-worm-dna.html?ref=science

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ufmace
It's really cool how, in a way, DNA is the source code of life. Except it's
completely awful spaghetti code even compared to the worst computer code
you've ever seen, and we have only the vaguest idea of how the processor
that's running it works. Imagine what we could do if we had the level of
understanding and power over it that we had over computer code. I hope these
guys are getting us just a little bit closer to that point.

Anybody wanna take a crack at refactoring the human DNA? Okay, we aren't
anywhere near ready for that, but imagine if we were.

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jrapdx3
If DNA is like source code, then it is really interesting the way one gene is
unzipped in order to unlock other genes.

Maybe it's a sort of encryption/decryption process, at the same time having
the properties of a "program" running to perform actions on itself. That would
make it the ultimate "self-modifying" system, which I imagine would be really
hard to reason about and debug.

Do you suppose DNA embodies the old idea that data is code and code data?
Wouldn't it be something if the DNA scheme turned out to be sort of like
Scheme. Apparently DNA is recursive in a sense, maybe it's also homoiconic.

I'm going to stop here now, I'm starting to get myself very confused.

