[seanmcdirmid]

I’m sure the term program synthesis precedes the term genetic programming. Neither of these are new things. This (https://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/uploads/publications...) is from 1971, for example. The earliest reference I can find to genetic programming is in the early 90s.

There are plenty of program synthesis techniques (maybe not this one) that do not use fitness functions and get the program straight from a solver. If they have anything written up, I’m sure the related work section would make the context more clear.

As for the accusation of band wagoning, it seems to come straight from the community that has been doing synthesis for years, not the ones that do GP.