Thursday, June 18, 2009

Cheek!

After my enthusiastic entry yesterday about self-referential programming in the form of DTS packages which are able to document themselves, I was annoyed to find Steven Pinker saying something along the lines of even a beginning programmer can write a program to examine or even modify itself in his book on How The Mind Works. I suppose he's right isn't he though I'm not sure that system reflection comes that soon after the "hello world" program. Here's a thought along the same lines. There are special tools for opening the devilish shrink-wrap that seems to surround every bought item these days. These tools themselves come in shrink-wrapped packages. Hell is the consumer society mixed up with the general lack of personal responsibility that also surround us all these days. I must say that there is no sign of me jettisoning How The Mind Works just yet.

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