PragProg Customers

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

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

5 comments
#suggestion/book-genetic-algorithms-in-elixir
9 766 5

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.

3
Post #2

Also Liked

seanmor5

seanmor5

Author of Genetic Algorithms in Elixir

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

2
Post #5
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

1
Post #3
AstonJ

AstonJ

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

1
Post #4

Where Next?

View thread on forum
View Genetic Algorithms In Elixir's book portal
Post errata for this book
Post a suggestion for this book
Post a question about this book
Post a review about this book
Home PragProg Customers
#suggestion/book-genetic-algorithms-in-elixir
9 766 5
Last post

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

yulkin
PragProg Customers

Programming Flutter: Image.toByteData() does not exist (page40)
your book suggests to use Image.toByteData() to convert image to bytes, however I get the following error: "the getter ‘toByteData’ isn’t...
/book-programming-flutter#question
1 4102 2
New
mikecargal
PragProg Customers

Hands-On Rust: Wrong multiplier for 8x8 console in main.rs
Title: Hands-On Rust (Chap 8 (Adding a Heads Up Display) It looks like ​.with_simple_console_no_bg​(SCREEN_WIDTH*2, SCREEN_HEIGHT*2...
#errata/book-hands-on-rust
9 2026 5
New
herminiotorres
PragProg Customers

Programming Phoenix LiveView: Typo
Hi! I know not the intentions behind this narrative when called, on page XI: mount() |> handle_event() |> render() but the correc...
#errata/book-programming-phoenix-liveview
3 1307 17
New
jeremyhuiskamp
PragProg Customers

Web Development with Clojure, Third Edition (vB17.0): create table syntax invalid
Title: Web Development with Clojure, Third Edition, vB17.0 (p9) The create table guestbook syntax suggested doesn’t seem to be accepted ...
#errata/book-web-development-with-clojure-third-edition
0 1835 1
New
frasette
PragProg Customers

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: erroneous extra space complexity (page400)
A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition by Jay Wengrow @jaywengrow Hi, I have the paperback version of t...
#errata/book-a-common-sense-guide-to-data-structures-and-algorithms-second-edition
4 1180 2
New
AndyDavis3416
PragProg Customers

Modern Front-End Development for Rails: ERROR in tsconfig.json Chapter_01/01
@noelrappin Running the webpack dev server, I receive the following warning: ERROR in tsconfig.json TS18003: No inputs were found in c...
/book-modern-front-end-development-for-rails
3 1438 3
New
brunogirin
PragProg Customers

Python Testing with pytest, Second Edition: unrecognized arguments error (page 122)
When I run the coverage example to report on missing lines, I get: pytest --cov=cards --report=term-missing ch7 ERROR: usage: pytest [op...
#errata/book-python-testing-with-pytest-second-edition
0 4000 1
New
Charles
PragProg Customers

Programming Phoenix LiveView: book not updated to version 1.6 (p. 18)
In general, the book isn’t yet updated for Phoenix version 1.6. On page 18 of the book, the authors indicate that an auto generated of ro...
#errata/book-programming-phoenix-liveview
9 2051 12
New
jonmac
PragProg Customers

Kotlin and Android Development featuring Jetpack: allprojects should be moved to settings.gradle (page 245)
The allprojects block listed on page 245 produces the following error when syncing gradle: “org.gradle.api.GradleScriptException: A prob...
#suggestion/book-kotlin-and-android-development-featuring-jetpack
1 2304 1
New
EdBorn
PragProg Customers

Agile Web Development with Rails 7: (page 70)
Title: Agile Web Development with Rails 7: (page 70) I am running windows 11 pro with rails 7.0.3 and ruby 3.1.2p20 (2022-04-12 revision...
#question/book-agile-web-development-with-rails-7
0 1129 1
New

Other popular topics Top

Devtalk
General Dev>Dev Chat

What dev-related stuff have you been up to?
Reading something? Working on something? Planning something? Changing jobs even!? If you’re up for sharing, please let us know what you’...
#community
1052 21915 398
New
AstonJ
General Dev>Dev Chat

What are you listening to?
A thread that every forum needs! Simply post a link to a track on YouTube (or SoundCloud or Vimeo amongst others!) on a separate line an...
#community#music
202 5126 102
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Backend>Learning Resources

Web Development with Clojure, Third Edition
Stop developing web apps with yesterday’s tools. Today, developers are increasingly adopting Clojure as a web-development platform. See f...
pragprog.com
#pragprog#web-development/clojure#published-book/book-web-development-with-clojure-third-edition
5 4584 1
New
DevotionGeo
Backend>Chat

What is the reason behind Rust’s web framework, Rocket, not performing as well as expected in the Techempower benchmarks?
I know that these benchmarks might not be the exact picture of real-world scenario, but still I expect a Rust web framework performing a ...
#web-frameworks/rust
36 7463 11
New
DevotionGeo
Backend>Chat

Would you use Erlang now when there is Elixir?
Why, if your answer is yes?
/elixir/erlang
167 4955 52
New
AstonJ
General Dev>Dev Chat

Languages Without Garbage Collection
Continuing the discussion from Thinking about learning Crystal, let’s discuss - I was wondering which languages don’t GC - maybe we can c...
#garbage-collection
21 5575 7
New
AstonJ
Science/Tech>Health & Diet

David Sinclair's new Lifespan podcast
We’ve talked about his book briefly here but it is quickly becoming obsolete - so he’s decided to create a series of 7 podcasts, the firs...
#health#podcasts#bio-hackers#david-sinclair
87 6790 49
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Community>In The Spotlight

Spotlight: Jamis Buck (Author) Interview and AMA!
Author Spotlight Jamis Buck @jamis This month, we have the pleasure of spotlighting author Jamis Buck, who has written Mazes for Prog...
#author-spotlight/ruby/book-the-ray-tracer-challenge/book-mazes-for-programmers
21 6352 9
New
First poster: bot
General Dev>In The News

Zig now has built-in HTTP server and client in std
zig/http.zig at 7cf2cbb33ef34c1d211135f56d30fe23b6cacd42 · ziglang/zig. General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaini...
github.com
/zig#http
0 5624 0
New
AstonJ
AI>In The News

DeepSeek (671B) running on a cluster of 8 Mac Mini Pros with 64GB RAM each
This is cool! DEEPSEEK-V3 ON M4 MAC: BLAZING FAST INFERENCE ON APPLE SILICON We just witnessed something incredible: the largest open-s...
#ai#macs/deepseek
0 6695 1
New
Back to top

Latest in Genetic Algorithms in Elixir

Genetic Algorithms in Elixir Portal ❯

PragProg Customers

Pragmatic Bookshelf PragProg Customers ❯

Latest on Devtalk

Devtalk ❯

We ❤️ helpful members!

We reward our most helpful members via our MOTM scheme - by giving away a whopping 25 books per year!

Member of the Month

Devtalk Sponsors

Pragmatic Bookshelf

Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.

Erlang Solutions

We build trusted fault-tolerant systems that scale to billions of users.

Honeybadger

Real-time error tracking, performance insights, and observability for devs.

EEF

Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.

coders51

We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.

Manning Publications

Develop your skills with books, videos, and courses.

AppSignal

Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.

WyeWorks

Enabling companies to succeed by building software people love.

Pragmatic Studio

Courses that move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"

Linux New Media

Publishing Linux Magazine, ADMIN, and MakerSpace for 25+ years.

View all our sponsors ❯

Categories:

Sub Categories:

Popular Portals

Devtalk Sponsors

Pragmatic Bookshelf

Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.

Erlang Solutions

We build trusted fault-tolerant systems that scale to billions of users.

Honeybadger

Real-time error tracking, performance insights, and observability for devs.

EEF

Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.

coders51

We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.

Manning Publications

Develop your skills with books, videos, and courses.

AppSignal

Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.

WyeWorks

Enabling companies to succeed by building software people love.

Pragmatic Studio

Courses that move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"

Linux New Media

Publishing Linux Magazine, ADMIN, and MakerSpace for 25+ years.

View all our sponsors ❯

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement See our Roadmap