From Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!uknet!cf-cm!cf.cm.ac.uk!David.Beasley Fri Mar 18 17:08:40 1994 Article: 2401 of comp.ai.genetic Newsgroups: comp.ai.genetic Path: Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!uknet!cf-cm!cf.cm.ac.uk!David.Beasley From: David.Beasley@cf.cm.ac.uk (David Beasley) Subject: What's new in the FAQ? (A Guide to "the Guide") Message-ID: Followup-To: comp.ai.genetic Summary: Summary of changes made to the FAQ since its last edition. Originator: David.Beasley@cf.cm.ac.uk (David Beasley) Sender: David.Beasley@cf.cm.ac.uk (David Beasley) Supersedes: Organization: University of Wales College of Cardiff, Cardiff, WALES, UK. Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 15:18:18 GMT Expires: 2 Jul 1994 15:18:14 GMT Lines: 99 Last-Modified: March 18, 1994 Issue: 2.1 Hello, and welcome to the new, reformatted, comp.ai.genetic FAQ, "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Evolutionary Computation". I have taken over from Joerg Heitkoetter as the editor of the FAQ, and its been my task in the past months to take care of it. At last, version 2.1 is ready to be revealed to the world :-) The main differences between 2.1 and the previous version are mainly in its format, rather than its content. These are described below. The next edition is due out on June 20th. From time to time, I'll post reminders to tell people how to pick up copies by FTP. As always, if you have information which could usefully go into the guide, send it to me. If you find any information is inaccurate, please let me know (if possible, with the _accurate_ information). All contributions/help welcome. If you have any questions which you'd like to be answered in the FAQ, post them to the newsgroup first. If any sensible answers are forthcoming, I'll include the information in the FAQ. SAFIER and ENCORE At about the time the last edition of the FAQ was released, a new FTP repository for evolutionary computing had just come on stream: SAFIER. Alas, as some of you will have discovered, SAFIER is no longer operating. The good news is that it is to be replaced by not one, but a _network_ of servers! These will go under the name ENCORE - "The EvolutioNary COmputation Repository Network". The new release of the FAQ carries information about the two ENCORE nodes for which there are firm plans. But please note that at time of posting, these servers have yet to be "officially" announced. Please wait until you see an official announcement on this newsgroup before attempting to access these sites, to avoid creating administrative headaches. CHANGES Format changes - Now comes in 6 parts, with the following broad categories: 1. Intro to the FAQ and the newsgroup 22k 2. Descriptions of different types of EAs 50k 3. Practice and theory 40k 4. References and information sources 54k 5. EA software packages 61k 6. Other topics and glossary 58k Text version is more conformant with rfc1153, making it easier to search for specific questions, using some newsreaders. (Postscript version retains similar formatting to earlier versions.) Local table of contents provided in each part. More consistent references to ftp sites. More cross-references between questions. Content changes - Some overlong entries have been trimmed (and more will probably be trimmed in the next release). References to SAFIER changed to the new ENCORE service. Question titles revised to give clearer indication of content, (and improved grammar). Q2 - Information on GAs and Game Playing added Q10.8 - Many more bibliographies included Q15.2 - GEARS added Q20/Q20.1 - Entries for GA Workbench and DGENESIS updated - Entry for GANNET added Q22 - New question on Test Data sources added Q99 - Many new glossary entries added. And finally... Thanks to Joerg for putting in all the hard work involved in compiling the FAQ in the first place. My task, from now on, is a comparatively simple one... David Beasley (david.beasley@cm.cf.ac.uk) Department of Computing Mathematics __o University of Wales College of Cardiff \<, PO Box 916, CARDIFF CF2 4YN, UK ___________________()/ ()___