Cultured Perl: Genetic Algorithms Applied with Perl

By Teodor Zlatanov
2004-11-03


Create Your Own Darwinian Breeding Grounds
Based on the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, genetic programming uses mutation and replication to produce algorithms for creating ever-improving computer programs. In this column, you'll get to know the genetic algorithm in simple terms. Ted provides Perl implementations for some specific tasks, which you can adapt for generic use. To demonstrate the genetic algorithm, Ted breeds numbers for fitness to a formula, and letters to form English words.

You can run the examples in this article if you have Perl 5.005 or later installed on your system. Preferably, your system should be a recent (2000 or later) mainstream UNIX (Linux, Solaris, BSD) installation, but other types of operating systems may work as well. The examples may work with earlier versions of Perl and UNIX, and other operating systems, but their failure to function should be considered an exercise for the reader to solve.

Tutorial Pages:
» Create Your Own Darwinian Breeding Grounds
» History
» So What is the Genetic Algorithm?
» A Simple Example
» Breeding words
» Conclusion
» Resources


First published by IBM DeveloperWorks

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