While we're on non-CS points of view, let me ask a new question about method bindings. I'm really interested in biological analogs (and was much taken by the ones you mentioned in your OOPSLA keynote). I've been trying
For you (other) pink-plane Darwinian dilletantes out there:
Squeak seems like a wonderful example of of an evolutionary phenonmenon called "neoteny", where an organism adapts by essentially reverting to an earlier stage in its development. The phenotype does this by arresting it's development at an earlier, juvenile stage, before the mature features that the genome is abandoning have developed. Sometimes the mature organism is hamstrung by adaptations that are no longer useful, and needs to "draw back to leap", to be able to explore the earlier paths not taken. (I first saw this notion in Koestler's books (Act of Creation/Ghost in the Machine), as an undergrad, which Alan also mentioned in his talk, as I recall.)
Pointers to other writings on computational vs. biological systems?
We did a patterns paper that cast evolving code in terms Dawkin's selfish gene notion: http://laputa.isdn.uiuc.edu/selfish/selfish.html. There's are some fresh patterns on the Wiki web that explore some bio angles: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BeeHive is a good place to start.
--BF