From: Wolfgang Banzhaf Subject: PUB: Genetic Programming Book Announcement Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 15:28:40 PDT A N N O U N C E M E N T of a Genetic Programming Text Book Wolfgang Banzhaf Peter Nordin Robert E. Keller Frank D. Francone Genetic Programming --- An Introduction On the Automatic Evolution of Computer Programs and Its Applications With a Foreword by John R. Koza Publication date: November 1997 Joint publication by: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg approx. 480 pp., 130 figures appr. US $ 50,- ISBN: 1-55860-510-X 3-920993-58-6 CONTENTS Foreword Preface I Prerequisites of Genetic Programming 1 Genetic Programming as Machine Learning 2 Genetic Programming and Biology --- The Analogy 3 Computer Science and Mathematical Basics 4 Genetic Programming as Evolutionary Computation II Genetic Programming Fundamentals 5 Basic Concepts --- The Foundation 6 Crossover --- The Center of the Storm 7 Genetic Programming and Emergent Order 8 Analysis -- Improving Genetic Programming with Statistics III Advanced Topics in Genetic Programming 9 Different Varieties of Genetic Programming 10 Advanced Genetic Programming 11 Implementation --- Making Genetic Programming Work 12 Applications of Genetic Programming 13 Summary and Perspectives Bibliography Appendix A Printed and Recorded Resources B Information Available on the Internet C GP Software D Events Person Index Subject Index FROM THE FOREWORD BY J.R. KOZA Genetic programming addresses the problem of automatic programming, namely the problem of how to enable a computer to do useful things without instructing it, step by step, on how to do it. The rapid growth of the field of genetic programming reflects the growing recognition that, after half a century of research in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, adaptive systems, automated logic, expert systems, and neural networks, we may finally have a way to achieve automatic programming. Genetic programming is fundamentally different from other approaches in terms of (i) its representation (namely, programs), (ii) the role of knowledge (none), (iii) the role of logic (none), and (iv) its mechanism (gleaned from nature) for getting to a solution within the space of possible solutions. FROM THE FIRST SECTION OF THE BOOK Automated programming will be one of the most important areas of computer science research over the next twenty years. Hardware speed and capability has leapt forward exponentially. Yet software consistently lags years behind the capabilities of the hardware. The gap appears to be ever increasing. Demand for computer code keeps growing but the process of writing code is still mired in the modern day equivalent of the medieval ``guild'' days. Like swords in the 15th century, muskets before the early 19th century and books before the printing press, each piece of computer code is, today, handmade by a craftsman for a particular purpose. The history of computer programming is a history of attempts to move away from the ``craftsman'' approach -- structured programming, object oriented programming, object libraries, rapid prototyping. But each of these advances leaves the code that does the real work firmly in the hands of a craftsman, the programmer. The ability to enable computers to learn to program themselves is of the utmost importance in freeing the computer industry and the computer user from code that is obsolete before it is released. .... Wolfgang Banzhaf Department of Computer Science University of Dortmund GERMANY http://ls11-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/people/banzhaf/ banzhaf@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU