Peter Hansen said unto the world upon 01/07/2005 11:47: > Dan Sommers wrote: > >>Peter Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>>This problem is well suited to the abilities of genetic algorithms, >>>and this would probably be an excellent way to learn more about them, >>>even if you don't get the best solution. >> >>There's some sort of irony or something in there about not writing the >>best genetic algorithm, but I can't quite put my finger on it. > > > Maybe your irony sensor is getting muddled over the fact that genetic > algorithms generally *don't* find the best solutions, just relatively > good ones. They aren't an exhaustive search, they're basically a random > search with some features thought to focus the search on more fruitful > parts of the solution space, thus optimizing it. Unless *my* irony > processors are malfunctioning, I don't think there's anything ironic > about this. (If anything it looks like the exact opposite of irony, to me.) > > -Peter
Well, I found it ironic, but only when you add that the genetic algorithm approach came up in the context of a "best fit" problem. Survival of the fittest indeed :-) Best, Brian vdB -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
