General & Miscellaneous Software, Multimedia Technology - General & Miscellaneous, Computer Animation, Computer Games & Entertainment - General & Miscellaneous

It's Alive!

Name: It's Alive!
Author: Frederick B. Cohen
ISBN: 9780471008606

by Frederick B. Cohen

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Overview

They grow, reproduce, age, and die; they even evolve and create ecosystems for themselves. They can be dangerous, or, as in the case of maintenance viruses and live distributed databases, they can be very useful. But are they really alive, or do they only mimic life's complex geometries? Dr. Cohen is sure they are. In It's Alive, Fred Cohen does for living programs what Stephen Jay Gould did for evolution, and Asimov did for just about everything in the cosmos. In a collection of eloquent, totally engaging essays, he takes a thoughtful look at new and emerging life forms. While he explores many of the practical issues of concern to programmers, he also tackles some of the knottier philosophical questions that have arisen in the debate over artificial life now raging within the scientific community at large. The enclosed disk contains useful, safe, live programs, including a number of fascinating games. All of the software comes with reusable code.

In this collection of essays, Cohen takes a thoughtful, philosophical look at the practical and useful "live" software out there today, including computer viruses, neural networks, sophisticated games, and more. Entertainingly written, this is the first book on this emerging topic. Disk includes a collection of safe "live" programs.

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Booknews

Cohen, an expert on information protection and computer viruses, explores practical issues of concern to programmers, and tackles questions arising from the debate over artificial life within the scientific community. He discusses "live" computer programs such as viruses, liveware, knowbots, cellular automata, and self-replicating automata. An accompanying disk contains live programs, including games. All of the software comes with reusable code. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)