About the book

Robot with transparent background A Field Guide to Genetic Programming (ISBN 978-1-4092-0073-4) is an introduction to genetic programming (GP). GP is a systematic, domain-independent method for getting computers to solve problems automatically starting from a high-level statement of what needs to be done. Using ideas from natural evolution, GP starts from an ooze of random computer programs, and progressively refines them through processes of mutation and sexual recombination, until solutions emerge. All this without the user having to know or specify the form or structure of solutions in advance. GP has generated a plethora of human-competitive results and applications, including novel scientific discoveries and patentable inventions.

The book is freely downloadable under a Creative Commons license as a PDF and low cost printed copies can be purchased from lulu.com. This web site will be used for information relating to the book, and other pertinent announcements. We also have a discussion group for questions and conversation related to the book.

Sunday 27 April 2008

8,000 downloads reached during the weekend

Within just over a month since its launch, the book has been downloaded over 8,000 times!
Many thanks!

Thursday 17 April 2008

The Field Guide appears in ACM's Technews, reddit, numerous blogs

Some recent Field Guide sightings include a nice mention in ACM's Technews roundup for 14 Apr 2008 and a listing by some kind (and unknown, to us) folks on reddit (here and there).

Other recent bloggers to mention the book include


Thanks to everyone for the links and support. To date (about 3 weeks since release) there have been 6873 downloads of the book! Questions and comments always welcome in the comments here, or over in our discussion group.

Saturday 12 April 2008

Over 5,000 downloads!

Man, I go away for a few days of vacation, and the downloads more than double! We're now at just over 5,000 downloads of the book, and 12 more printed copies were ordered in the last five days as well.

Just as I was leaving, Jennifer Willies also posted a ton of good photos from the EvoStar event, including a nice shot of the three Field Guide authors and our cover artist.

Sunday 6 April 2008

More photos from the Field Guide unveiling


Antje Schwefel shared some of her photos from EuroGP, including the shot above of us (Bill, Tyler, Nic, and Riccardo, left to right) posing in our Field Guide shirts with Evelyne Lutton. Thanks to Antje for the photo!

The EvoStar 2008 site also has a link now for EvoStar photos that is in fact a pointer to the "evostar" tag on Flickr. These are currently dominated by the previously mentioned photos from JJ Merelo, and Tyler and myself, but there are also some nice photos from La Singularidad Desnuda, including the nice example of Riccardo's autographing handiwork below.



2,151 downloads and counting!

Saturday 5 April 2008

Over 2,000 downloads!

The PDF version of the Field Guide has now been downloaded 2,049 times from Lulu. Many thanks to everyone who's helped support the book!

Thursday 3 April 2008

We've created a mailing list/discussion group for the Field Guide

There have now been over 1,800 downloads of the Field Guide, and we're beginning to get some good questions, comments, and suggestions from readers. It seemed like we probably wanted to set up some sort of system to help manage and archive that data stream, so we've created a discussion group for the Field Guide: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/field-guide-to-genetic-programming.

Feel free to subscribe if you've got feedback on the book that you'd like to share, or you'd just like to see other people's feedback. I would assume that the traffic on the list will remain light, but that's really up to you folks.










Google Groups
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Tuesday 1 April 2008

Over 1,500 downloads!

As of mid-day on Tuesday (so just under a week after the official release), we've just topped 1,500 downloads of the Field Guide! We've also sold 20 printed copies, plus the 50 we sold at the EvoStar unveiling.

J.K. Rowling doesn't have much to worry about yet on the best seller lists, but we're still quite excited by the number of people that have chosen to download the book - thanks!

Field Guide sightings!


Several kind folks have put in a plug for the Field Guide on-line:
Many thanks to all these folks for helping spread the word. Given our non-standard publishing and distribution model, we're particularly dependent on this sort of word of mouth support. Feel free to let us know if you've posted a plug for the book (in the comments or authors AT gp-field-guide DOT org DOT uk).

We're also looking for photos (like the one above from JJ Merelo) from the grand unveiling at EvoStar/EuroGP Wednesday in Naples, so please pass along those as well.