Genetic Programming and Data Structures: Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming! [Hardcover]

William B. Langdon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0792381351 | ISBN-13: 978-0792381358 | Publication Date: April 30, 1998 | Edition: 1st

Computers that `program themselves' has long been an aim of computer scientists. Recently genetic programming (GP) has started to show its promise by automatically evolving programs. Indeed in a small number of problems GP has evolved programs whose performance is similar to or even slightly better than that of programs written by people. The main thrust of GP has been to automatically create functions. While these can be of great use they contain no memory and relatively little work has addressed automatic creation of program code including stored data. This issue is the main focus of Genetic Programming, and Data Structures: Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming!. This book is motivated by the observation from software engineering that data abstraction (e.g., via abstract data types) is essential in programs created by human programmers. This book shows that abstract data types can be similarly beneficial to the automatic production of programs using GP. Genetic Programming and Data Structures: Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming! shows how abstract data types (stacks, queues and lists) can be evolved using genetic programming, demonstrates how GP can evolve general programs which solve the nested brackets problem, recognises a Dyck context free language, and implements a simple four function calculator. In these cases, an appropriate data structure is beneficial compared to simple indexed memory. This book also includes a survey of GP, with a critical review of experiments with evolving memory, and reports investigations of real world electrical network maintenance scheduling problems that demonstrate that Genetic Algorithms can find low cost viable solutions to such problems. Genetic Programming and Data Structures: Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming! should be of direct interest to computer scientists doing research on genetic programming, genetic algorithms, data structures, and artificial intelligence. In addition, this book will be of interest to practitioners working in all of these areas and to those interested in automatic programming.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`The book is nicely produced ... and well illustrated. The text is well written and is easy to read and understand. The concepts in genetic programming are well presented, as are those in genetic algorithms. The references are selected to be useful. People of a non-mathematical disposition will find few problems in reading this book.' Robotica, 17 (1999)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1st edition (April 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792381351
• ISBN-13: 978-0792381358
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,550,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars useful and practical description of Genetic Programming., May 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Genetic Programming and Data Structures: Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming! (Hardcover)

Langdon's book is an important addition to the literature on Genetic Programming. After a thorough survey of the state of the art in the field, he describes how Genetic Programming can be used to generate the standard data structures that humans rely on so heavily. He then describes how these data structures can be used to extend the power of Genetic Programming, and gives a number of useful examples. In all, an important part of any GP library.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very nice introduction to the field of genetic programming, April 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Genetic Programming and Data Structures: Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming! (Hardcover)

The book "Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming!" by William B. Langdon is a very nice introduction to the field of genetic programming. The book is well structured. It contains most, if not all, references to important previous work on GP, and further extends the range of applicability of GP by investigating the use abstract data structures in evolving genetic programs. Routines to manage abstract data structures (stacks, queues, and list) are evolved by GP. The book also shows some problems where enriching the GP-language with primitives to manage a data structure enables it to solve more complex problems.

Cees H.M. van Kemenade.