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Comment by ajuc | Hacker News Reader

I wonder, if you wrote a program, that generates all valid javascript programs, given enough time, do you automatically have copyright on all these programs? Or do you need to actually run the program and save the results somewhere?

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nah, it's clear that work still needs to be done to identify the useful programs. if you can identify useful programs from any sludge of valid programs, well you have AI.

Well in the number-script compiler, it verifies code by running it (I'm not sure if that qualifies).

Also, you would get stuck on code with infinite loops.

The verify phase was just defining an inline function but not running it. However, I just noticed that a program with carefully placed braces could jump out of the function box and actually run. I replaced the checker with just Function(src) which shouldn't have that problem and is much faster.

Oh, right, it didn't execute it. I need more caffeine (except not really, it's 2:30).

Also, you would get stuck on code with infinite loops.

Or you could just set a timeout.

Then how would you know the loop wouldn't eventually halt? ;)

You don't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

Indeed.

If we only checked that produced program has valid syntax, instead of running it, we won't have problems with loops. Many gibberish programs would be produced, but some usefull also, eventually. We just wouldn't know which ones are the useful ones, but it shouldn't matter for copyright?

So it seems documenting is the real work, and programming is something that can be automated :)

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