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Algorithm::Evolutionary, a flexible Perl module for evolutionary computation

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Abstract

This paper describes Algorithm::Evolutionary ( A::E ), a Perl module released under an open source license and designed for the exploration and exploitation of evolutionary algorithms. We describe the design decisions taken to enhance flexibility, how performance was improved by using several implementation tweaks, and what kind of design patterns were applied for its development. This work also tries to dispel the myth of low performance of scripting languages by comparing it with a state-of-the-art library (ECJ) written in Java. Besides, we are interested in assessing its efficiency in several possible evolutionary settings, finding out what kind of behavior we can expect, and what can be done to improve it. Applications already written using A::E are also described, along with how it can be used to create new operators. Finally, some conclusions are drawn from the design experience.

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Notes

  1. Tree::DAG_Node and Bit::Vector classes, and many more, can be found in the helpful CPAN, or Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.

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Acknowledgements

This paper has been funded in part by the Spanish MICYT projects NoHNES (Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia - TIN2007-68083) and TIN2008-06491-C04-01 and the Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-02025 and P07-TIC-03044. We are also grateful to those who have contributed patches and code to A::E , too numerous to mention, but fully acknowledged in the general page for the library (found at http://fon.gs/ae-acks/). We are also very grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers of the first versions of this paper, which have contributed to improve it greatly.

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  1. Depto. Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores, ETS Ingenierías Informática y Telecomunicaciones, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Juan Julián Merelo Guervós & Pedro A. Castillo

  2. Depto. Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Computación, Universidad de Málaga, Malaga , Spain

    Enrique Alba

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  1. Juan Julián Merelo Guervós
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  3. Enrique Alba
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Correspondence to Juan Julián Merelo Guervós.

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Merelo Guervós, J.J., Castillo, P.A. & Alba, E. Algorithm::Evolutionary, a flexible Perl module for evolutionary computation. Soft Comput 14, 1091–1109 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-009-0504-3

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