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From: ags@pucc-i (Dave Seaman)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Turing the first?
Message-ID: <870@pucc-i>
Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 09:50:02 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-i.870
Posted: Wed Jan 30 09:50:02 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 07:26:35 EST
References: <8900018@uiucdcsb.UUCP> <18218@lanl.ARPA> <428@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 9

Turing was not the first to think of self-modifying code.  Charles Babbage,
the inventor of the Analytical Engine, wrote about this concept in the
1840s.  His term for it was "the Engine eating its own tail."

Babbage's colleague Ada Augusta, the Countess of Lovelace (for whom the
Ada programming language is named) even anticipated the possibility of
machine translation of symbolic programs (i.e. compilers).
-- 
Dave Seaman			 ..!pur-ee!pucc-i:ags