How much of Evolution is shaped by history vs underlying constraints?

And Python, of course, was developed by Oracle at their Delphi branch.

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And don’t forget the Linux operating system, invented by Carl Linnaeus for the purpose of storing his nested data structures of animal names.

I wonder if there are LLMs out there learning from this thread :slight_smile: .

There was no confusion of which to avoid more.

There was exposure of deception, of which it’s understandable you might not want more, but that’s not confusion.

But this thread has morphed into puns about software languages, making it moot.

So… programming languages have been named after mathematicians (Ada Lovelace), researchers (Charles Fort), technology inventors (Al Gore), and even entertainers (Ruby Wax, Barry White), all of which make some sort of sense - but why would anyone name a programming language after an Italian tennis player?

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But so much more enjoyable.

Took a little digging to find that one.

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Well done for finding Barry White’s contribution :clap:

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I took a simple programming class in 1981 at the Univ. of Texas. Couldn’t say which language it was, probably BASIC. Our simple programs were printed on a stack of punch cards we took to the computer lab, grades based on the printed output. In one semester I learned programming wasn’t my thing. haha

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The evolution of computer technology is an interesting story that might have some similarities or analogies with biological evolution, especially the questions of underlying constraints and history.

One note about the evolution of computers is that the ‘experienced’ users tend to tell personal stories about the history to the ‘inexperienced’ who do not have such personal experiences. I have told my share of such stories, so guilty to the same weakness. Maybe that is one of the criteria distinguishing the ‘experienced’ (old) from the ‘young’.

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This is common in many other fields. Some so old they are no longer “evolving”. This is more in line with the “sitting around a fire telling stories.”

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Telling stories is a human experience – maybe an indicator of humanness. There is a certain joy in seeing a young person’s eyes widen as you tell them what it’s like to interact with a computer over a 300-baud modem, or even to use a telephone that is plugged into the wall with a wire :slight_smile:.

My deductive powers have not been up to determining which computer programming language was named after an Italian tennis player, but I am curious!

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My guess would be Flavio Cobolli of COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) fame.

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:trophy: :star: :1st_place_medal: :clap: :clap: :clap:

I have decided to just copy and paste the one and only positive comment regarding the previous version of the article. If the Moderators find it inappropriate for this thread or forum, I figure they will take action in such a case. So there is no need for me to be that hesitate……………………………

Comments for Author:
”For far too long the profound insight of Richard Owen’s structuralist theory of archetypes has been overshadowed by the stochastic theory first introduced by Darwin. After Samuel Wilberforce’s powerful performance at Oxford, the great 19th century debate between transcendental anatomy and empiricism, so well described by Ron Amundson, appeared to have been lost, in spite of the fact that reason, humility, science and humanity were all on the Bishop’s side. As a result, none of the great biologists on the European continent recognized the wisdom of Owen’s immortal words, “we learn from the past history of our globe that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light…from the first embodiment of the Vertebrate idea under its old Ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the Human form.”

Rana and Ross should be congratulated for noticing the many ways Owen’s theory is a precursor to theirs. If they look more closely into his book On Parthenogenesis, they will see that viral elements and microtubules, which they correctly identify as the locus of life’s blueprint, were essentially present in Owen’s theory of reproduction, another example of how remarkably he was ahead of his time. He cannot have foreseen the implications of quantum dynamics, much less the cosmological constant, but Owen’s adaptive mask surely pointed in the right direction.

My only suggstion for improving this well-supported argument is that they develop further their recognition that the endorestiform nucleus in human cerebral anatomy gives us a reason to revive Owen’s classification of Homo sapiens as a member of the subclass Archencephala. Taxonomists have too long persisted in repeating the mistake of Linnaeus, who classified us as Primates, as if we are a kind of monkey.”