Genetic algorithms in Elixir : solve problems using evolution

From finance to artificial intelligence, genetic algorithms are a powerful tool with a wide array of applications. But you don't need an exotic new language or framework to get started; you can learn about genetic algorithms in a language you're already familiar with. Join us for an in-depth look at the algorithms, techniques, and methods that go into writing a genetic algorithm. From introductory problems to real-world applications, you'll learn the underlying principles of problem solving using genetic algorithms. Evolutionary algorithms are a unique and often overlooked subset of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Because of this, most of the available resources are outdated or too academic in nature, and none of them are made with Elixir programmers in mind. Start from the ground up with genetic algorithms in a language you are familiar with. Discover the power of genetic algorithms through simple solutions to challenging problems. Use Elixir features to write genetic algorithms that are concise and idiomatic. Learn the complete life cycle of solving a problem using genetic algorithms. Understand the different techniques and fine-tuning required to solve a wide array of problems. Plan, test, analyze, and visualize your genetic algorithms with real-world applications. Open your eyes to a unique and powerful field - without having to learn a new language or framework. **What You Need:** You'll need a macOS, Windows, or Linux distribution with an up-to-date Elixir installation. Cover 1 Table of Contents 7 Disclaimer 10 Acknowledgments 11 Preface 12 Who This Book Is For 13 What’s in This Book 13 How to Use This Book 15 How Does Elixir Fit In? 15 1. Writing Your First Genetic Algorithm 17 Understanding Genetic Algorithms 18 Introducing the One-Max Problem 21 Initializing the Population 22 Understanding the Flow of Genetic Algorithms 23 Selecting Parents 25 Creating Children 26 Running Your Solution 27 Adding Mutation 29 What You Learned 30 2. Breaking Down Genetic Algorithms 31 Reviewing Genetic Algorithms 31 Looking Deeper into Genetic Algorithms 32 Using Mix to Write Genetic Algorithms 38 Building a Framework for Genetic Algorithms 39 Understanding Hyperparameters 43 Solving the One-Max Problem Again 45 What You Learned 47 3. Encoding Problems and Solutions 48 Using Structs to Represent Chromosomes 48 Using Behaviours to Model Problems 52 Understanding and Choosing Genotypes 58 Solving One-Max for the Last Time 61 Spelling Words with Genetic Algorithms 62 What You Learned 65 4. Evaluating Solutions and Populations 66 Optimizing Cargo Loads 67 Introducing Penalty Functions 70 Applying a Penalty to the Shipping Problem 71 Defining Termination Criteria 72 Applying Termination Criteria to Shipping 76 Crafting Fitness Functions 77 Exploring Different Types of Optimization 80 What You Learned 84 5. Selecting the Best 86 Exploring Selection 87 Customizing Selection in Your Framework 90 Implementing Common Selection Strategies 93 What You Learned 100 6. Generating New Solutions 101 Introducing N-Queens 101 Solving N-Queens with Order-One Crossover 105 Exploring Crossover 109 Implementing Other Common Crossover Strategies 109 Crossing Over More Than Two Parents 116 Implementing Chromosome Repairment 117 What You Learned 119 7. Preventing Premature Convergence 120 Breaking Codes with Genetic Algorithms 121 Understanding Mutation 126 Customizing Mutation in Your Framework 128 Implementing Common Mutation Strategies 130 Other Methods to Combat Convergence 135 What You Learned 136 8. Replacing and Transitioning 137 Creating a Class Schedule 138 Understanding Reinsertion 141 Experimenting with Reinsertion 145 Growing and Shrinking Populations 147 Local Versus Global Reinsertion 148 What You Learned 149 9. Tracking Genetic Algorithms 151 Using Genetic Algorithms to Simulate Evolution 151 Logging Statistics Using ETS 156 Tracking Genealogy in a Genealogy Tree 162 What You Learned 167 10. Visualizing the Results 169 Visualizing the Genealogy of the Tiger Evolution 169 Visualizing Basic Statistics 172 Playing Tetris with Genetic Algorithms 174 Installing and Compiling ALEx 175 What You Learned 180 11. Optimizing Your Algorithms 181 Benchmarking and Profiling Genetic Algorithms 182 Writing Fast Elixir 187 Improving Performance with Parallelization 189 Improving Performance with NIFs 195 What You Learned 197 12. Writing Tests and Code Quality 199 Understanding Randomness 200 Writing Property Tests with ExUnit 201 Cleaning Up Your Framework 204 Writing Type Specifications 207 What You Learned 210 13. Moving Forward 211 Learning with Evolution 211 Designing with Evolution 212 Trading with Evolution 213 Networking with Evolution 214 Evolving Neural Networks 215 Where to Go Next 216 Bibliography 217 Index 218 – SYMBOLS – 218 – A – 218 – B – 218 – C – 219 – D – 220 – E – 220 – F – 221 – G – 221 – H – 222 – I – 222 – J – 222 – K – 223 – L – 223 – M – 223 – N – 224 – O – 224 – P – 224 – Q – 225 – R – 225 – S – 226 – T – 227 – U – 228 – V – 228 – W – 228 – X – 228 – Z – 228 MVC and CRUD make software easier to write, but harder to change. Microservice-based architectures can help even the smallest of projects remain agile in the long term, but most tutorials meander in theory or completely miss the point of what it means to be microservice-based. Roll up your sleeves with real projects and learn the most important concepts of evented architectures. You'll have your own deployable, testable project and a direction for where to go next. Much ink has been spilled on the topic of microservices, but all of this writing fails to accurately identity what makes a system a monolith, define what microservices are, or give complete, practical examples, so you're probably left thinking they have nothing to offer you. You don't have to be at Google or Facebook scale to benefit from a microservice-based architecture. Microservices will keep even small and medium teams productive by keeping the pieces of your system focused and decoupled. Discover the basics of message-based architectures, render the same state in different shapes to fit the task at hand, and learn what it is that makes something a monolith (it has nothing to do with how many machines you deploy to). Conserve resources by performing background jobs with microservices. Deploy specialized microservices for registration, authentication, payment processing, e-mail, and more. Tune your services by defining appropriate service boundaries. Deploy your services effectively for continuous integration. Master debugging techniques that work across different services. You'll finish with a deployable system and skills you can apply to your current project.Add the responsiveness and flexibility of microservices to your project, no matter what the size or complexity.What You Need:While the principles of this book transcend programming language, the code examples are in Node.js because JavaScript, for better or worse, is widely read. You'll use PostgreSQL for data storage, so familiarity with it is a plus. The books does provide Docker images to make working with PostgreSQL a bit easier, but extensive Docker knowledge is not required. MVC and CRUD make software easier to write, but harder to change. Microservice-based architectures can help even the smallest of projects remain agile in the long term, but most tutorials meander in theory or completely miss the point of what it means to be microservice-based. Roll up your sleeves with real projects and learn the most important concepts of evented architectures. You'll have your own deployable, testable project and a direction for where to go next. Much ink has been spilled on the topic of microservices, but all of this writing fails to accurately identity what makes a system a monolith, define what microservices are, or give complete, practical examples, so you're probably left thinking they have nothing to offer you. You don't have to be at Google or Facebook scale to benefit from a microservice-based architecture. Microservices will keep even small and medium teams productive by keeping the pieces of your system focused and decoupled. Discover the basics of message-based architectures, render the same state in different shapes to fit the task at hand, and learn what it is that makes something a monolith (it has nothing to do with how many machines you deploy to). Conserve resources by performing background jobs with microservices. Deploy specialized microservices for registration, authentication, payment processing, e-mail, and more. Tune your services by defining appropriate service boundaries. Deploy your services effectively for continuous integration. Master debugging techniques that work across different services. You'll finish with a deployable system and skills you can apply to your current project. Add the responsiveness and flexibility of microservices to your project, no matter what the size or complexity. What You While the principles of this book transcend programming language, the code examples are in Node.js because JavaScript, for better or worse, is widely read. You'll use PostgreSQL for data storage, so familiarity with it is a plus. The books does provide Docker images to make working with PostgreSQL a bit easier, but extensive Docker knowledge is not required. Give Users The Real-time Experience They Expect, By Using Elixir And Phoenix Channels To Build Applications That Instantly React To Changes And Reflect The Application's True State. Learn How Elixir And Phoenix Make It Easy And Enjoyable To Create Real-time Applications That Scale To A Large Number Of Users. Apply System Design And Development Best Practices To Create Applications That Are Easy To Maintain. Gain Confidence By Learning How To Break Your Applications Before Your Users Do. Deploy Applications With Minimized Resource Use And Maximized Performance. Real-time Applications Come With Real Challenges - Persistent Connections, Multi-server Deployment, And Strict Performance Requirements Are Just A Few. Don't Try To Solve These Challenges By Yourself - Use A Framework That Handles Them For You. Elixir And Phoenix Channels Provide A Solid Foundation On Which To Build Stable And Scalable Real-time Applications. Build Applications That Thrive For Years To Come With The Best-practices Found In This Book. Understand The Magic Of Real-time Communication By Inspecting The Websocket Protocol In Action. Avoid Performance Pitfalls Early In The Development Lifecycle With A Catalog Of Common Problems And Their Solutions. Leverage Genstage To Build A Data Pipeline That Improves Scalability. Break Your Application Before Your Users Do And Confidently Deploy Them. Build A Real-world Project Using Solid Application Design And Testing Practices That Help Make Future Changes A Breeze. Create Distributed Apps That Can Scale To Many Users With Tools Like Phoenix Tracker. Deploy And Monitor Your Application With Confidence And Reduce Outages. Deliver An Exceptional Real-time Experience To Your Users, With Easy Maintenance, Reduced Operational Costs, And Maximized Performance, Using Elixir And Phoenix Channels. What You Need: You'll Need Elixir 1.9+ And Erlang/otp 22+ Installed On A Mac Os X, Linux, Or Windows Machine. Rediscover how fun web development can be with Hugo, the static site generator and web framework that lets you build content sites quickly, using the skills you already have. Design layouts with HTML and share common components across pages. Create Markdown templates that let you create new content quickly. Consume and generate JSON, enhance layouts with logic, and generate a site that works on any platform with no runtime dependencies or database. Hugo gives you everything you need to build your next content site and have fun doing it. Published: 2020-05-10 Release: P1.0 (2020-05-06) ISBN: 978-1-68050-726-3 Database-driven sites bring complexity you might not need, but building a site by hand is too much work. Hugo is a static site generator and web development framework that creates content sites quickly without the overhead or dependencies of a dyanmic web framework. With Hugo, you use HTML templates and Markdown to build static sites you can host anywhere, letting you use the skills you already have. Develop your own theme using standard HTML and CSS, using Hugos powerful templating features to organize your sites components. Create your sites content with HTML or Markdown and use Hugos content templating features to build new content quickly. Build a fully-featured blog with archive pages, tagging, and pagination, and integrate an external commenting system to provide interactivity. Use data from front-matter, site-wide configuration, and external JSON sources to add content, and generate JSON others can use. Integrate JavaScript with your site to create a search engine. Get Hugo working with Webpack so you can leverage the wider web development ecosystem, and explore ways to publish your site to various services. Finally, learn how you can move your existing content site to Hugo. Dive in and build your next site with Hugo! Rediscover how fun web development can be with Hugo, the static site generator and web framework that lets you build content sites quickly, using the skills you already have. Design layouts with HTML and share common components across pages. Create Markdown templates that let you create new content quickly. Consume and generate JSON, enhance layouts with logic, and generate a site that works on any platform with no runtime dependencies or database. Hugo gives you everything you need to build your next content site and have fun doing it. Database-driven sites bring complexity you might not need, but building a site by hand is too much work. Hugo is a static site generator and web development framework that creates content sites quickly without the overhead or dependencies of a dyanmic web framework. With Hugo, you use HTML templates and Markdown to build static sites you can host anywhere, letting you use the skills you already have. Develop your own theme using standard HTML and CSS, using Hugo’s powerful templating features to organize your site’s components. Create your site’s content with HTML or Markdown and use Hugo’s content templating features to build new content quickly. Build a fully-featured blog with archive pages, tagging, and pagination, and integrate an external commenting system to provide interactivity. Use data from front-matter, site-wide configuration, and external JSON sources to add content, and generate JSON others can use. Integrate JavaScript with your site to create a search engine. Get Hugo working with Webpack so you can leverage the wider web development ecosystem, and explore ways to publish your site to various services. Finally, learn how you can move your existing content site to Hugo. Dive in and build your next site with Hugo! -- Provided by publisher You've decided to tackle machine learning - because you're job hunting, embarking on a new project, or just think self-driving cars are cool. But where to start? It's easy to be intimidated, even as a software developer. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that hard. Master machine learning by writing code one line at a time, from simple learning programs all the way to a true deep learning system. Tackle the hard topics by breaking them down so they're easier to understand, and build your confidence by getting your hands dirty. Peel away the obscurities of machine learning, starting from scratch and going all the way to deep learning. Machine learning can be intimidating, with its reliance on math and algorithms that most programmers don't encounter in their regular work. Take a hands-on approach, writing the Python code yourself, without any libraries to obscure what's really going on. Iterate on your design, and add layers of complexity as you go. Build an image recognition application from scratch with supervised learning. Predict the future with linear regression. Dive into gradient descent, a fundamental algorithm that drives most of machine learning. Create perceptrons to classify data. Build neural networks to tackle more complex and sophisticated data sets. Train and refine those networks with backpropagation and batching. Layer the neural networks, eliminate overfitting, and add convolution to transform your neural network into a true deep learning system. Start from the beginning and code your way to machine learning mastery. What You Need: The examples in this book are written in Python, but don't worry if you don't know this language: you'll pick up all the Python you need very quickly. Apart from that, you'll only need your computer, and your code-adept brain. Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully. Going from engineer to manager doesn't have to be intimidating. Engineers can be managers, and fantastic ones at that. Cast aside the rhetoric and focus on practical, hands-on techniques and tools. You'll become an effective and supportive team leader that your staff will look up to. Start with your transition to being a manager and see how that compares to being an engineer. Learn how to better organize information, feel productive, and delegate, but not micromanage. Discover how to manage your own boss, hire and fire, do performance and salary reviews, and build a great team. You'll also learn the psychology: how to ship while keeping staff happy, coach and mentor, deal with deadline pressure, handle sensitive information, and navigate workplace politics. Consider your whole department. How can you work with other teams to ensure best practice? How do you help form guilds and committees and communicate effectively? How can you create career tracks for individual contributors and managers? How can you support flexible and remote working? How can you improve diversity in the industry through your own actions? This book will show you how. Great managers can make the world a better place. Join us "Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully. Going from engineer to manager doesn't have to be intimidating. Engineers can be managers, and fantastic ones at that. Cast aside the rhetoric and focus on practical, hands-on techniques and tools. You'll become an effective and supportive team leader that your staff will look up to.Start with your transition to being a manager and see how that compares to being an engineer. Learn how to better organize information, feel productive, and delegate, but not micromanage. Discover how to manage your own boss, hire and fire, do performance and salary reviews, and build a great team. You'll also learn the psychology: how to ship while keeping staff happy, coach and mentor, deal with deadline pressure, handle sensitive information, and navigate workplace politics. Consider your whole department. How can you work with other teams to ensure best practice? How do you help form guilds and committees and communicate effectively? How can you create career tracks for individual contributors and managers? How can you support flexible and remote working? How can you improve diversity in the industry through your own actions? This book will show you how." -- Publisher description Fearlessly change the design of your iOS code with solid unit tests. Use Xcode's built-in test framework XCTest and Swift to get rapid feedback on all your code - including legacy code. Learn the tricks and techniques of testing all iOS code, especially view controllers (UIViewControllers), which are critical to iOS apps. Learn to isolate and replace dependencies in legacy code written without tests. Practice safe refactoring that makes these tests possible, and watch all your changes get verified quickly and automatically. Make even the boldest code changes with complete confidence. Manual code and UI testing get slower the deeper your navigation hierarchy goes. It can take several taps just to reach a particular screen, never mind the actual workflow tests. Automatic unit testing offers such rapid feedback that it can change the rules of development. Bring testing to iOS development, even for legacy code. Use XCTest to write unit tests in Swift for all your code. iOS developers typically reserve unit tests for their model classes alone. But that approach skips most of the code common to iOS apps, especially with UIViewControllers. Learn how to unit test these view controllers to expand your unit testing possibilities. Since good unit tests form the bedrock for safe refactoring, you're empowered to make bold changes. Learn how to avoid the most common mistakes Swift programmers make with the XCTest framework. Use code coverage to find holes in your test suites. Learn how to identify hard dependencies. Reshape the design of your code quickly, with less risk and less fear. "Coding is awesome. So is being outside. With location-based iOS apps, you can combine the two for an enhanced outdoor experience. Use Swift to create your own apps that use GPS data, read sensor data from your iPhone, draw on maps, automate with geofences, and store augmented reality world maps. You’ll have a great time without even noticing that you’re learning. And even better, each of the projects is designed to be extended and eventually submitted to the App Store. Explore, share, and have fun. Location-based apps are everywhere. From mapping our jogging path to pointing us to the nearest collectible creature in a location-based game, these apps offer useful and interesting features and information related to where you are. Using real-world maps and places as the environment, they add an extra layer of adventure to exploring the outdoors. If you’ve ever wanted to make your own location-based apps and games, you can learn how with four simple, Swift-based projects that are easy to code and fun to use.Build four stunning apps that sense the iPhone’s surroundings. Use Core Location and MapKit to draw GPS data on maps and share the results to social media. Use the sensor data from the iPhone and draw acceleration graphs using Core Graphics while on a playground swing. Build an app that measures the time you spend outside using geofences. Combine Core Location and ARKit to build an augmented reality scavenger hunt app that you can use and play with other people. Have a great time building creative apps you cannot wait to try out."-- Site web de l'éditeur Coding is awesome. So is being outside. With location-based iOS apps, you can combine the two for an enhanced outdoor experience. Use Swift to create your own apps that use GPS data, read sensor data from your iPhone, draw on maps, automate with geofences, and store augmented reality world maps. You'll have a great time without even noticing that you're learning. And even better, each of the projects is designed to be extended and eventually submitted to the App Store. Explore, share, and have fun. Location-based apps are everywhere. From mapping our jogging path to pointing us to the nearest collectible creature in a location-based game, these apps offer useful and interesting features and information related to where you are. Using real-world maps and places as the environment, they add an extra layer of adventure to exploring the outdoors. If you've ever wanted to make your own location-based apps and games, you can learn how with four simple, Swift-based projects that are easy to code and fun to use. Build four stunning apps that sense the iPhone's surroundings. Use Core Location and MapKit to draw GPS data on maps and share the results to social media. Use the sensor data from the iPhone and draw acceleration graphs using Core Graphics while on a playground swing. Build an app that measures the time you spend outside using geofences. Combine Core Location and ARKit to build an augmented reality scavenger hunt app that you can use and play with other people. Have great time building creative apps you cannot wait to try out. "From finance to artificial intelligence, genetic algorithms are a powerful tool with a wide array of applications. But you don't need an exotic new language or framework to get started; you can learn about genetic algorithms in a language you're already familiar with. Join us for an in-depth look at the algorithms, techniques, and methods that go into writing a genetic algorithm. From introductory problems to real-world applications, you'll learn the underlying principles of problem solving using genetic algorithms. Evolutionary algorithms are a unique and often overlooked subset of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Because of this, most of the available resources are outdated or too academic in nature, and none of them are made with Elixir programmers in mind. Start from the ground up with genetic algorithms in a language you are familiar with. Discover the power of genetic algorithms through simple solutions to challenging problems. Use Elixir features to write genetic algorithms that are concise and idiomatic. Learn the complete life cycle of solving a problem using genetic algorithms. Understand the different techniques and fine-tuning required to solve a wide array of problems. Plan, test, analyze, and visualize your genetic algorithms with real-world applications. Open your eyes to a unique and powerful field - without having to learn a new language or framework." -- Provided by publisher Real-time applications come with real challengespersistent connections, multi-server deployment, and strict performance requirements are just a few. Dont try to solve these challenges by yourselfuse a framework that handles them for you. Elixir and Phoenix Channels provide a solid foundation on which to build stable and scalable real-time applications. Build applications that thrive for years to come with the best practices found in this book. Understand the magic of real-time communication by inspecting the WebSocket protocol in action. Avoid performance pitfalls early in the development lifecycle with a catalog of common problems and their solutions. Leverage GenStage to build a data pipeline that improves scalability. Break your application before your users do and deploy with confidence. Build a real-world project using solid application design and testing practices that help make future changes a breeze. Create distributed apps that can scale to many users with tools like Phoenix Tracker. Deploy and monitor your application with confidence and reduce outages. Deliver an exceptional real-time experience to your users, with easy maintenance, reduced operational costs, and maximized performance, using Elixir and Phoenix Channels. Real-time applications come with real challenges: persistent connections, multi-server deployment, and strict performance requirements are just a few. Don't try to solve these challenges by yourself : use a framework that handles them for you. Elixir and Phoenix Channels give you the tools you need to be successful. Build applications that thrive for years to come with the best practices found in this book. Avoic performance pitfalls early in the development lifecycle with a catalog of common problems and their solutions. Build a real-world project using solid application design and testing practices that help make future changes a breeze. Create distributed apps that scale to many users. Break your application before your users do and then deploy and monitor with confidence to reduce outages Part I. Fundamentals: You have a new project ; Writing messages ; Putting data in a message store ; Projecting data into useful shapes ; Subscribing to the message store -- part II. Registering users: Implementing your first component ; Authenticating users ; Adding an email component ; Performing background jobs with microservices ; Building async-aware user interfaces -- part III. Tools of the trade: Deploying components ; Debugging components ; Testing in a microservices architecture ; Continuing the journey ; ES6 syntax