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08/16/2001 Entry: "Mystery DBA in Roundup Beans"

Belguim researchers have found unexpected DNA in Monsanto's genetically "engineered" soybeans. I have placed engineered in quotes for a reason, since poor version control is definitely a sign of a poorly engineered product.

I've made the argument in other posts that genetic engineering is like doing software engineering on million year old legacy systems with no documentation. In such a system it is neccessary to do massive amounts of testing because you can't reasonably be expected to understand all the different logic paths that the control can flow. Changing something small can have a huge impact somewhere else that would never have expected it to be involved. This is what happens in systems 30 years old developed by at least partally rational beings - how can random mutation do any better ?

Version control is another aspect of development which is absolutely neccessary. It's impossibily to make sure your changes aren't introducing any unexpected consequences unless you know what you are changing.

It's also been my experience that sloppy version control is indicitive of the entire engineering culture at a company.