2024-03-28T18:03:08Zhttp://digital.csic.es/dspace-oai/requestoai:digital.csic.es:10261/1524472021-11-22T13:02:36Zcom_10261_9676com_10261_8col_10261_9677
Punctuated equilibrium in the large-scale evolution of programming languages
Valverde, Sergi
Solé, Ricard V.
Fundación Botín
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
Santa Fe Institute (US)
Cultural evolution
Punctuated equilibrium
Networks
Technology
Programming languages
Software
The analogies and differences between biological and cultural evolution have been explored by evolutionary biologists, historians, engineers and linguists alike. Two well-known domains of cultural change are language and technology. Both share some traits relating the evolution of species, but technological change is very difficult to study. A major challenge in our way towards a scientific theory of technological evolution is how to properly define evolutionary trees or clades and how to weight the role played by horizontal transfer of information. Here, we study the large-scale historical development of programming languages, which have deeply marked social and technological advances in the last half century. We analyse their historical connections using network theory and reconstructed phylogenetic networks. Using both data analysis and network modelling, it is shown that their evolution is highly uneven, marked by innovation events where new languages are created out of improved combinations of different structural components belonging to previous languages. These radiation events occur in a bursty pattern and are tied to novel technological and social niches. The method can be extrapolated to other systems and consistently captures the major classes of languages and the widespread horizontal design exchanges, revealing a punctuated evolutionary path.
Our work has been supported by the Botín Foundation, by Banco Santander through its Santander Universities Global Division, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grant no. FIS2013-44674-P and FEDER and by the Santa Fe Institute, where most of this research was done.
Peer reviewed
2017-07-06T12:29:36Z
2017-07-06T12:29:36Z
2015-06-06
artículo
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
Journal of the Royal Society Interface 12(107): 20150249 (2015)
1742-5662
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/152447
10.1098/rsif.2015.0249
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100006373
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003329
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011419
25994298
en
#PLACEHOLDER_PARENT_METADATA_VALUE#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MINECO/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016/FIS2013-44674-P
http://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2015.0249
Sí
none
Royal Society (Great Britain)