New Year

As part of my new years resolution I will posting here every day.

I have also have created an image for my project, the glider.

LML

One of the biggest issues that my system will have is being able to understand and manipulate any language. My plan for this is to get the user to quantify there language into a set mark-up language. For this purpose I created a language mark-up language or LML.

This part is needed to force the user to translate there language into a format that my genetic logic can deal with, need to be broad enough to be able to cover most modern languages. I also needed to be easy enough to learn so that anyone could use it. But one of the most important issues was the fact it needed to be efficient so that there isn't a gigantic overhead.

/$call$/(1+_Dup_Cha)

The above line is an example of LML. It indicates that a line from the “call” file is needed. The 1+ means there will be one or more instances of the line in the entity. Dup means that there can be identical lines in the system, the opposite of Dup is Uni which insures the line is unique. Cha means that the genetic logic can alter the line later with out the fear the program will break.

Implementing Corewar

Corewar is the first virtual environment that I have implemented. The entities that it runs are written in redcode, form of assembly. This is is a language with a very small grammar. It has only 16 calls. A small working bot can be written quickly but a complex and efficient one takes a lot of work.

@@Corewar

@@Main

/|/ Ver 5 of ml.

/|/ Core of corewars set

--;Gen:

--;Name:

--;Number of Copies:

;redcode-94

/$call$/(1+_Dup_Cha)

end

Above is the main centre of the redcode LML.

Below is one of the first entities in the redcode language, 00007.red.

;Gen:

;Name:

;Number of Copies:

;redcode-94

JMP <31,>

end

To display corewar battles I will be using Aries, a detailed and really good looking gui for corewar. For the actual evolution part I will use qMars[3]. This is a library that a client can pass redcode entities to and will return who wins as well as how well they won by and any other information I will need.

At the moment my system is not properly handling the fitness but this is an issue that can be fixed down the line.

I luled

int ***values;

WIN

Celebration dance cat is dancing in celebration of genetic logic.

Expect 3 posts this weekend

FYP Presentaion

Wednesday 21st of October, on a cold wet morning 6 student were slowly roast, much to the joy of the 3 baying lecturers.

I'm exaggerating, but nobody got out of the presentation without a solid attack on there project.

Here is a copy of my slides:

Some of the best questions I was ask at the end are;

How is this different from the traditional GP paradigm?

Why are you using genetic programming?

What sort if API's do your virtual environment's have?


I won't answer these now but they will leak out eventually.

Updated timetable

This is the updated timetable.


Milestone 1 Deciding and coding of the XML format 31st Oct

Milestone 2 Programming of Genetic logic 28th Nov

Milestone 3 First working entity 25th Dec

Milestone 4 Second working VE 17th Jan

Incremental addition of more VE's as time permits


Those of you paying attention will notice that the distributed part of the project has been dropped. Time is the main reason for this tho I hope to re-include it again before the end.


There will be a post regarding my presentation up soon.............

Code has Begun!

C++ is pouring out.
1st on the hitlist, file structure.

Timeline Change

I have started working on the ml first. This is because, while the distrubited aspect is not critical to making a prototype, the markup language is.

Expect a post with the update time table soon.

Forum Transcript

This is of little project value but I found it humours. These are the people I go to for /prog/ramming help.

C# vs C++

1 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 16:56

I'm not looking to start some sort of fanboy arguement.

Is the ease in development brought by C# worth more than the power/speed of C++?

I'm writing a genetic algorithim so speed is pretty important.
I can't find any legit benchmark test so I'm lookin for oppinions here.

2 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:00

OMG PONIES

3 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:01

I'm not looking to start some sort of fanboy arguement.
Now you have 2 problems.

4 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:05

Who the fuck even uses C# ? Just use sepples.

5 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:09

On behalf of C#, I have to say, that LINQ thing looks pretty interesting. But I never used it, so what the fuck do I know?

6 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:15

>>1
Is the ease in development brought by C# worth more than the power/speed of C++?
C++ has no power or speed. However, in reality, ease of development trumps both of those most of the time anyway.

But for a genetic algorithm, use C. Preferably C calls from a Foreign Function Interface of a higher level language.

7 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:19

C# is only good if you want to make money

8 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 17:35

>>5
I have used LINQ and can tell you it's fucking amazing. Being able to write queries directly in the language is a major advantage, and that LINQ works against many different types of things (objects, XML, SQL, Entities, etc.) is even better.

9 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 18:16

>>8
Does it gain you all that much over list expressions when you're not dealing with SQL? I haven't seen many compelling examples.

10 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 19:04

>>1
Sepples is only worthwhile for things that absolutely need the performance and would benefit from the features of Sepples, e.g. inheritance.

Games are a specific problem domain that work decently with Sepples, but that's about it. Outside of gaming, there really isn't much use in Sepples.

Almost all other languages do other functions better, e.g. C for device drivers, C#, D, Delphi, etc. for userspace, and so on.

11 Name: Anonymous : 2009-10-01 20:08

>>1
I can't find any legit benchmark test
That's because no such thing exists

---

Genetic Logic

What do I need this part of the system to do?
This part is where the guts of the work will take place. I need a system that can interpret my markup language and apply generational logic to it. A mutation system and a way remove the least fit from every generation.


How will it do this?
There are a few(read thousands) libraries out there for genetic algorithms. I have not decided which one I will be using, or if i will be making my own.

Further reading
http://lancet.mit.edu/ga/

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.19.1906&rep=rep1&type=pdf