gmlewis

gmlewis

Genetic Algorithms in Elixir: Some feedback, a question and suggestion

@seanmor5 - This is a great book so far… I’m enjoying reading and coding along with it!

Quick question, though - since “evaluate” goes to the trouble of calling the “fitness_function” and generating an updated list of Chromosomes with the new calculated “fitness” values in the struct, instead of ending the function with this (where it has to call the “fitness_function” a bunch more times):

 |> Enum.sort_by(fitness_function, &>=/2)

why not end it with this (in order to use these pre-calculated values)?

|> Enum.sort_by(& &1.fitness, &>=/2)

Also, I’m kinda sad that you dismissed the tree-type genetic programming like John Koza did in the 60s and 70s (to generate electronic circuits and a whole bunch of other cool stuff), but that is a huge topic in itself. Also, I’m extremely interested in Gene Expression Programming invented by Dr. Candida Ferreira, but that is also tree-type.

Anyway, thanks for the great book, and I look forward to your updates!

– Glenn

Marked As Solved

seanmor5

seanmor5

Author of Genetic Algorithms in Elixir

Good catch! I think that’s the result of me forgetting to update the call to sort_by after I added in the fitness calculation for each chromosome. I’ll make sure that gets fixed.

I thought a lot about whether or not to include some examples of Genetic Programing and other tree-type methods. Ultimately I thought it might have been a lot of overhead just to get a simple example up and running and I was trying to cover a lot of ground without getting too carried away with any one topic. I was also trying to make sure the topics built on top of one another and felt like a dive into tree-based encodings and their applications would have been too much of a detour from the progression of the book.

Now that you mention it I think a dive into tree-based encoding schemes would make for an excellent supplement to the book. I’ll put something together and release it on my blog for anybody who’s interested.

Also Liked

seanmor5

seanmor5

Author of Genetic Algorithms in Elixir

Thanks for the suggestion. It’s in my profile. Not much content…yet.

gmlewis

gmlewis

Awesome! Can you please provide a link to your blog? I don’t remember seeing it in the book (yet).

Also, just for kicks, you might enjoy checking out my early attempts of Gene Express Programming (in Go) from a few years back: GitHub - gmlewis/gep: Gene Expression Programming in Go

– Glenn

AstonJ

AstonJ

You could add it to your profile as well Sean :+1:

Where Next?

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

abtin
page 20: … protoc command… I had to additionally run the following go get commands in order to be able to compile protobuf code using go...
New
Alexandr
Hi everyone! There is an error on the page 71 in the book “Programming machine learning from coding to depp learning” P. Perrotta. You c...
New
cro
I am working on the “Your Turn” for chapter one and building out the restart button talked about on page 27. It recommends looking into ...
New
Chrichton
Dear Sophie. I tried to do the “Authorization” exercise and have two questions: When trying to plug in an email-service, I found the ...
New
jskubick
I found an issue in Chapter 7 regarding android:backgroundTint vs app:backgroundTint. How to replicate: load chapter-7 from zipfile i...
New
brunogirin
When installing Cards as an editable package, I get the following error: ERROR: File “setup.py” not found. Directory cannot be installe...
New
New
dsmith42
Hey there, I’m enjoying this book and have learned a few things alredayd. However, in Chapter 4 I believe we are meant to see the “>...
New
creminology
Skimming ahead, much of the following is explained in Chapter 3, but new readers (like me!) will hit a roadblock in Chapter 2 with their ...
New
jwandekoken
Book: Programming Phoenix LiveView, page 142 (157/378), file lib/pento_web/live/product_live/form_component.ex, in the function below: d...
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Free and open source software is the default choice for the technologies that run our world, and it’s built and maintained by people like...
New
AstonJ
What chair do you have while working… and why? Is there a ‘best’ type of chair or working position for developers?
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Design and develop sophisticated 2D games that are as much fun to make as they are to play. From particle effects and pathfinding to soci...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Tailwind CSS is an exciting new CSS framework that allows you to design your site by composing simple utility classes to create complex e...
New
AstonJ
Continuing the discussion from Thinking about learning Crystal, let’s discuss - I was wondering which languages don’t GC - maybe we can c...
New
AstonJ
Saw this on TikTok of all places! :lol: Anyone heard of them before? Lite:
New
AstonJ
Was just curious to see if any were around, found this one: I got 51/100: Not sure if it was meant to buy I am sure at times the b...
New
Help
I am trying to crate a game for the Nintendo switch, I wanted to use Java as I am comfortable with that programming language. Can you use...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: VM Brasseur @vmbrasseur We have a treat for you today! We turn the spotlight onto Open Source as we sit down with V...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Get the comprehensive, insider information you need for Rails 8 with the new edition of this award-winning classic. Sam Ruby @rubys ...
New

Sub Categories: