Bert Hubert, a Dutch software engineer, writes about C++ for C programmers, CPU security flaws, and how DNA works.
HN commenters mostly recommend his essay 'DNA seen through the eyes of a coder' as a clear explanation of the parallels between genomes and code.
"It's not super productive to try and understand this stuff through analogy to computers and algorithms."
You mean like this: https://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna
Having worked in both industries I prefer working with wet science people. For some reason they generally have a much healthier perspective on life. Their work is humbling because it is, and will forever be, full of unsolved mysteries, not simply because it is challenging. The other folks, whether they call themselves "scientists" or "engineers" or "developers" or "coders" or whatever, are working with something that as far as I can see has no inherent connection to the natural world, other than being a production of the human mind. Perhap that affects the perspective many of them have on life. For example, how common among them is this belief that all things, not simply computers, can be thoroughly understood and mastered. Note this is pure opinion, not fact, and I am generalising; there are exceptions to every generalisation.
I think it's not only about genomes.
Actually, cells have a lot of state. See [1] for a basic, slightly old, CS-biased explanation.
That's how a single genome yields an incredibly varied repertoire of cell types. We need to work a lot on understanding those epigenomes to then get a chance to pinpoint genetic causes of disease.
[1] http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/
Just note that DNA itself is code and completely useless without an interpreter/compiler. The DNA is just a storage mechanism, the true complexity relies on the cell.
See: http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/
If we lost all cells but had DNA, we could not do anything with it. The same way that source code is useless if you don't have a compiler.
I highly recommend reading "DNA seen through the eyes of a coder" at http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/
It is a very nice explanation, shows many similarities, while also making Intercal seem sane.
You will probably enjoy "DNA seen through the eyes of a coder"[1] , previously discussed on HN[2]
1: https://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/
2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16233644
Previous parts:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17309654
https://ds9a.nl/articles/posts/cpp-2/
https://ds9a.nl/articles/posts/cpp-3/
https://ds9a.nl/articles/posts/cpp-4/