Applying Darwinian evolution to programming

Question

A while back I recall reading a magazine article (in Wired I believe) about applying Darwinian evolution to programs to create better programs. Essentially multiple mutations of a program would be spawned, and the one that performed the best would be selected for the next round of mutations.

Unforunately I can't make the subject sound nearly as interesting as is sounded in the article, but I can't find the article.

Since this sounds like just the coolest thing ever to me, I was wondering what mutations one could have inside of a program

Answer 1

I read an article on Coding Horror about something like that the other day: Go That Way, Really Fast. Basically, the idea I got from it was that software should constantly be improved which means constantly pushing out new versions/releases. This seems to match the idea of evolution in that your software is always improving into something better.

Answer 2

Yes. It is called Genetic Programming, where a master program that writes programs itself. And the programs it writes can evolve to a certain criterion.

E.g. 8 queen could be solved by GP.

Answer 3

I think you're referring to Genetic Algorithms. I want to work on this topic for my dissertation. I can't stop reading about it :-)

Answer 4

Found this article/paper - is this what you're referring to?. Also found this PDF. Quite an interesting topic

What it sounds like is that you could use self-modifying code that reproduces the program itself based on self-monitoring optimizations. This would currently point at interpreted-language programs.