WatchMaker: Framework for genetic programming

Reading through the Apache Mahout wiki, I ran across the "Genetic Programming" section which listed WatchMaker, but the wiki page it pointed to had essentially zero descriptive information about WatchMaker itself or even a link to WatchMaker itself. Here's the link to the WatchMaker web page, which tells us that:

The Watchmaker Framework is an extensible, high-performance, object-oriented framework for implementing platform-independent evolutionary/genetic algorithms in Java. The framework provides type-safe evolution for arbitrary types via a non-invasive API. The Watchmaker Framework is Open Source software, free to download and use subject to the terms of the Apache Software Licence, Version 2.0.

Just to briefly summarize genetic programming (from the WatchMaker User Manual):

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are inspired by the biological model of evolution and natural selection first proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859. In the natural world, evolution helps species adapt to their environments. Environmental factors that influence the survival prospects of an organism include climate, availability of food and the dangers of predators.

 

Species change over the course of many generations. Mutations occur randomly. Some mutations will be advantageous, but many will be useless or detrimental. Progress comes from the feedback provided by non-random natural selection.

 

...

 

Evolutionary algorithms are based on a simplified model of this biological evolution. To solve a particular problem we create an environment in which potential solutions can evolve. The environment is shaped by the parameters of the problem and encourages the evolution of good solutions.

 

The field of Evolutionary Computation encompasses several types of evolutionary algorithm. These include Genetic Algorithms (GAs), Evolution Strategies, Genetic Programming (GP), Evolutionary Programming and Learning Classifier Systems.

 

The most common type of evolutionary algorithm is the generational genetic algorithm. We'll cover other EA variants in later chapters but, for now, all of the evolutionary algorithms that we meet will be some kind of generational GA.

 

The basic outline of a generational GA is as follows (most other EA variants are broadly similar). A population of candidate solutions is iteratively evolved over many generations. Mimicking the concept of natural selection in biology, the survival of candidates (or their offspring) from generation to generation in an EA is governed by a fitness function that evaluates each candidate according to how close it is to the desired outcome, and a selection strategy that favours the better solutions. Over time, the quality of the solutions in the population should improve. If the program is successful, we can terminate the evolution once it has found a solution that is good enough.

-- Jack Krupansky