Genetic Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs

TL;DR: This book presents a method to automatically decompose a program into solvable components, called automatically defined functions (ADF), and then presents case studies of the application of this method to a variety of problems.

Abstract: This book is a followon to the book in which John Koza introduced genetic programming (GP) to the world "enetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Nataral Selection " [5] 1. As such, the primary intended audience is someone already familiar with GP; however, Koza does provide introductory material to both genetic algorithms (GA) and GP. The driving force behind this book is a method to automatically decompose a program into solvable components. The book presents this method, called automatically defined functions (ADF), and then presents case studies of the application of this method to a variety of problems. While this book's size is intimidating, there is a wealth of information to be found by the reader willing to conduct a prolonged campaign. The reader is advised to study the first seven chapters of the book to gain an understanding of the concepts behind ADFs. Then the reader should be able to select which case studies he or she finds to be of interest. If the reader is feeling overwhelmed by the information presented in the book, there are several concise chapters dealing with ADFs by Koza and others in Advances in Genetic Programming edited by Kenneth Kinnear [3] 2.