Evolutionary Computing

PR Stanley

24 Jan 2008 24 Jan '08

6:55 p.m.

Hi What does the list think of EC? Genetic algorithm is apparently the latest thing. Is EC mathematically reasonable? Paul

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Paulo Tanimoto

24 Jan 24 Jan

10:30 p.m.

Have you seen Koza's Genetic Programming as well? His original implementation was in Lisp, but I think it can be done elegantly in Haskell as well, perhaps with the advantage of static typing. Hmm, I just found this: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/GPLib I also found a paper on something called PolyGP: http://www.cs.mun.ca/~tinayu/index_files/addr/public_html/pgp.new.pdf Whether mathematically reasonable or not, I think EC works well in practice but within some limits. A few "inventions" and "discoveries" have been done through it, and there are certainly lots of interesting uses out there in optimization. But after a few years it seems that EC is not the panacea that enthusiasts promised in the past. It often involves quite a lot of work setting up, takes long time to converge to something, whereas other simpler methods can give similar/better results, just because you can apply your knowledge more directly. But I must say I don't have much practical experience with them myself. Mostly reading other people's work. Paulo PS: Check this out too, mentioning Sean Luke's work: http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds4-3/robocup.html On Jan 24, 2008 4:55 PM, PR Stanley wrote:

...

Hi What does the list think of EC? Genetic algorithm is apparently the latest thing. Is EC mathematically reasonable? Paul

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Jon Harrop

10:41 p.m.

On Friday 25 January 2008 03:30:03 Paulo Tanimoto wrote:

...

But I must say I don't have much practical experience with them myself. Mostly reading other people's work.

Me too. I have read that EC is competitive when the fitness function is riddled with discontinuities though, so it may still be useful. As an aside, I also found a lot of the folklore surrounding more conventional optimization algorithms to be completely wrong in practice (at least in the context of molecular dynamics). -- Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd. http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?e

Paulo Tanimoto

10:44 p.m.

There's also this theorem by Holland, but I've never read much about it to know how sound it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland%27s_schema_theorem Paulo On Jan 24, 2008 8:30 PM, Paulo Tanimoto wrote:

...

Have you seen Koza's Genetic Programming as well?

His original implementation was in Lisp, but I think it can be done elegantly in Haskell as well, perhaps with the advantage of static typing.

Hmm, I just found this: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/GPLib

I also found a paper on something called PolyGP: http://www.cs.mun.ca/~tinayu/index_files/addr/public_html/pgp.new.pdf

Whether mathematically reasonable or not, I think EC works well in practice but within some limits. A few "inventions" and "discoveries" have been done through it, and there are certainly lots of interesting uses out there in optimization. But after a few years it seems that EC is not the panacea that enthusiasts promised in the past. It often involves quite a lot of work setting up, takes long time to converge to something, whereas other simpler methods can give similar/better results, just because you can apply your knowledge more directly.

But I must say I don't have much practical experience with them myself. Mostly reading other people's work.

Paulo

PS: Check this out too, mentioning Sean Luke's work: http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds4-3/robocup.html

On Jan 24, 2008 4:55 PM, PR Stanley wrote:

...
Hi What does the list think of EC? Genetic algorithm is apparently the latest thing. Is EC mathematically reasonable? Paul

_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Clifford Beshers

11:03 p.m.

On Jan 24, 2008 3:55 PM, PR Stanley wrote:

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Hi What does the list think of EC? Genetic algorithm is apparently the latest thing.

They've been around for a while, actually. See below for some work from the early 1990's.

...

Is EC mathematically reasonable?

I'm not sure what that means, but they can be useful, especially when you are looking for something that is novel, rather than meeting specific, pre-determined criteria. Karl Sims made a business out of them for generating graphics. "Survival of the prettiest," he called it. For more info: http://www.genarts.com/karl/ http://www.genarts.com/karl/papers/siggraph91.html

Dusan Kolar

25 Jan 25 Jan

8:27 a.m.

Hello, I don't know about math, but a practical usage seems to be in the reconfigurable hardware (FPGA). See web-page of my colleague, where is list of his papers on the topic. http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~sekanina/pubs.php Dusan PR Stanley wrote:

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Hi What does the list think of EC? Genetic algorithm is apparently the latest thing. Is EC mathematically reasonable? Paul

Alex Young

8:55 a.m.

Dusan Kolar wrote:

...

Hello,

I don't know about math, but a practical usage seems to be in the reconfigurable hardware (FPGA). See web-page of my colleague, where is list of his papers on the topic.

http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~sekanina/pubs.php These people use GAs for optimising water networks (and, more importantly, maintenance of water networks):

http://optimatics.com/go/case-studies-andamp-testimonials Their tools are all C++, though. -- Alex

...

Dusan

PR Stanley wrote:

...
Hi What does the list think of EC? Genetic algorithm is apparently the latest thing. Is EC mathematically reasonable? Paul

_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

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Alex Young
Clifford Beshers
Dusan Kolar
Jon Harrop
Paulo Tanimoto
PR Stanley