Goal Seeking Software
In this design, the user specifies an acceptable outcome. The computer program has a set of operations it can combine. Crucially, the software must be able to try out different combinations of the operations without causing harm. When it finds a sequence that produces the acceptable result, the program is done.
Goal seeking is fine when the computer can identify every possible undesired result, but this is rarely possible. People are far more skilled at recognizing undesirable outcomes than software is.
Also, producing software to identify every possible bad solution is at least as complex as simply finding a solution. See the article on the frame problem for more on this.
Read more about this topic: Software Brittleness Problem
Famous quotes containing the words goal and/or seeking:
“The legend of Felix is ended, the toiling of Felix is done;
The Master has paid him his wages, the goal of his journey is won;
He rests, but he never is idle; a thousand years pass like a day,
In the glad surprise of Paradise where work is sweeter than play.”
—Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)
“The war is utter damn nonsense—a vast cancer fed by lies and self seeking [sic] malignity on the part of those who don’t do the fighting.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)