From: John Gabriele <jmg3000@...>
Date: 2006-10-17T00:13:38+09:00
Subject: Re: "Good Ideas, Through the Looking Glass"

On 10/16/06, Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@ameritech.net> wrote:
>
> [snip] A well-
> know AI researcher once said something like: if our programs can't
> modify themselves, then they will never do anything very interesting.
> Was is Shank? Was it Minsky? I can't remember.

Not that it's what you're thinking of, but I read "The Story of Mel" a
long while back ( http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html ), and recall
this quote:

|
| I had been hired to write a Fortran compiler for this new marvel and
| Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers.
|
| "If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?"
|

Fun little read, btw, though quite off-topic here.

---John