Javarunner

JGAP 3.4.1 released (Java Genetic Algorithms Package)

2009-02-03T17:52:00.000+01:00

JGAP is a sophisticated Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.4.1 fine-tunes Genetic Programming capabilities that have been advanced in the previous major release 3.4.The tuning includes:Enhanced GP evolution cycle by avoiding dead endsBetter support of GP mutationImproved Mona Lisa Painting Problem exampleSome bug fixesJavadoc-enhancementsThis release

JGAP 3.4 released (Java Genetic Algorithms Package)

2009-02-03T17:50:00.001+01:00

JGAP is a sophisticated Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.4 is an enhancement release, driving Genetic Programming capabilities to a new level. Among the extensions are:A new popular example: Mona Lisa Painting Problem, available for GA as well as for GPEnhancement of evolution cycle of Genetic ProgrammingJavadoc-enhancements and new JUnit testsSome

JGAP 3.3.3 released (Java Genetic Algorithms Package)

2008-05-09T19:14:00.001+02:00

JGAP is a sophisticated Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.3.3 is an extensive release, featuring basically the following:The evolution cycle has been revamped and simplified for a better understandingA lot of smaller enhancements and architectural improvements, see the change logSome bugs have been fixedThe basic MinimizingMakeChange example was

JGAP 3.3.1 released - Java Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming Package

2007-12-13T12:17:00.000+01:00

JGAP is a sophisticated Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java. JGAP version 3.3.1 is a feature enrichment release.For the first time, the XStream library is used for serialization issues, making such much more convenient.Besides, the fast and stable trove4j map implementation is utilized. With that, unit tests relying on maps now don't fail any longer due to specific

RobocodeJGAP 0.2.5 released

2007-11-11T19:11:00.000+01:00

Robocode is a game. There is a playfield in which two virtual robots fight against each other. A robot can perform certain actions, like moving around, scanning the environment, shooting and turning the gun. Robocode notified a robot if a significant event occurs, including: scanned the opponent, hit a wall, hit by a bullet or hit the opponent.RobocodeJGAP enables JGAP to generate code for robots

JGAP 3.3 released (Java Genetic Algorithms Package)

2007-11-11T19:09:00.000+01:00

JGAP is a sophisticated Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.3 is a stability release, it includes the following:Integrated Robocode 1.4.8 with JGAPAdded persistent representations of GPPopulation, GPProgram, ProgramChromosome and CommandGeneEnhanced interface IProgramCreatorGPProgram: added a growOrFull method for initializing programs with given

LINQ is great but is 20 years too late

2007-09-13T12:40:00.000+02:00

LINQ is the Language-Integrated Query. Microsoft has the LINQ project running for integrating database queries into C#. Sort of looks like this (example taken from DevelopMentor):IEnumerable < Product > prodQuery = from p in db.Products where p.Category.CategoryName == "Beverages" select p;Sort of this is what I'm missing for long in Java!!!Before getting to

JGAP 3.2.2 released: Java Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming Package

2007-09-12T21:42:00.000+02:00

JGAP is a Java Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming Package which allows to utilize evolutionary algorithms for solving complex problems.Version 3.2.2 of the open source Java enginge is out now!Many examples included as well as a cool Robocode sub project.

RobocodeJGAP 0.2.1 published

2007-09-12T21:40:00.000+02:00

RobocodeJGAP is a genetic programming approach to evolve full-blown Java programs, acting as virtual robots on the popular Robocode platform.RobocodeJGAP utilizes the genetic algorithms enginge JGAP.For more information on RobocodeJGAP see http://jgap.sourceforge.net/doc/robocode/robocode.htmlOr see further information about Robocode

URLEncoder/URLDecoder way too slow

2007-06-21T15:47:00.000+02:00

As I recently found out by trying, the methods encode in java.net.URLEncoder and decode in java.net.URLDecoder are way too slow.Following an advice, I replaced these calls with encode and decode from class org.apache.commons.codec.net.URLCodec which is part of the Apache Commons Codec library.Running the same application with Java's built in coding logic and another time with Apache's, showed me

Java Genetic Algorithms Package 3.2RC1 released

2007-02-13T21:52:00.000+01:00

JGAP is a Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.2 Release Candidate 1 represents major feature enhancements, including:Genetic Programming enhancementsA complex Robocode GP example for evolving pure Java codeImprovements in the grid logic (especially concerning the architecture)A lot of new unit tests (currently we count over 1300 unit tests)This

JGAP goes Robocode

2007-01-31T10:16:00.000+01:00

Newest developments and a great user feedback made JGAP play together with Robocode.Robocode is a platform for letting compete programs (robots) by moving around, scanning the environment and shooting each other virtually.JGAP is a Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming (GP) Package for Java and is open-source.It is used to evolve a robot program code as good as possible by using the GP

Sourceforge CVS is stuck with WinCVS

2007-01-14T11:56:00.000+01:00

For several weeks now I noticed great difficulties when trying to access the sourceforge CVS of my project with WinCVS (any version!). Don't get me wrong, it worked for years! But since a while I even get a long delay on WinCVS startup. Not to mention the really long time it takes checking in something.OK, it could be that my system's configuration is not playing together with sf's CVS. But why,

JGAP 3.1 released

2007-01-03T20:23:00.000+01:00

JGAP is a Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.1 is a quality improvement release.It considers multiple user feedback by consolidating the grid functionality, fixing several bugs, introducing a lot of new unit tests, and enhancing the logic of many classes.This release can be downloaded here:http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11618&

DMOZ seems dead

2007-01-02T14:03:00.000+01:00

After trying to suggest an URL to DMOZ several time with several weeks between the tries, I attemted to become an editor for a category. This is possible by clicking on another link on the DMOZ page. Unfortunately, an error page appeared saying "service temporarily unavailable". Even more unfortunate, that this error has come up for months!Writing a mail to the DMOZ staff (staff@dmoz.org, as

JGAP 3.01 released: Grid functionality

2006-09-25T21:28:00.000+02:00

JGAP is a genetic algorithms and genetic programming package written in Java.JGAP version 3.01 adds grid functionality to the code base of release 3.0. With that you can build your own grid in LANs.A grid hosts a server, one to many workers, and one to many clients. A client can send work requests to the server, which in turn splits the work and provides the workers with corresponding tasks.

JGAP 3.0final released

2006-09-01T21:25:00.000+02:00

Today, JGAP 3.0final has been released. JGAP is a genetic algorithms and genetic programming package, which is easy to use and which is delivered with ready-to-use components, such as genetic operators, selectors and examples.Try it out now, this version contains many improvements.Feedback is very welcome :-)

German JUnit book released

2006-06-03T10:18:00.000+02:00

Just these days my junit book was released and can be ordered at Amazon.Information about the book can be found at the book's official homepage.As said, the book is written in German, but maybe some of you can handle this :-) The homepage contains some information about it and links to some english articles that may be of interest.

Faster than light... this time not with Java

2006-05-25T14:42:00.000+02:00

Isn't that awesome! Light can predict the way it will take (or, to adapt this statement to the new findings: ... it had taken in future).Quantum physics has not been mentioned in the article but it is definitively sort of issue QP will have to cope with.This is not related to Java in any way but it's so gorgeous that it's worth an entry :-)

JGAP 2.6 released

2006-04-28T10:42:00.000+02:00

Some days ago, JGAP 2.6 has been released. JGAP is a genetic algorithms package, which is easy to use and which is delivered with ready-to-use components, such as genetic operators, selectors and examples.Try it out now!In the CVS you already find code to solve problems using Genetic Programming (see directory gp-src).Feedback is very welcome :-)PS: The German junit book references JGAP several

Common Annotations for Java (JSR 250) shamefully approved

2006-04-19T09:19:00.000+02:00

After several protests of mine to avoid the finalization of JSR 250 (Common Annotations for Java), now the Executive Commitee has shamefully approved that JSR.Thanx Doug Lea for adding a comment to his vote the first time I can remember. He wrote: "Underwhelming but innocuous". Then, Doug, you better voted with "No", please. That would have raised your reputation a lot...Anyone, please read the

Anybody using JUnit's ExceptionTestCase ?

2006-01-10T13:01:00.000+01:00

To write a unit test that expects an exception of a particular type to be thrown is possible by using JUnit's class junit.framework.ExceptionTestCase. However the usage of this class (that inherits from junti.framework.TestCase) is ugly (details such as import statements omitted):1. Test classpublic void MyTestCase extends ExceptionTestCase { public void testXYZ throws Exception { MyClass

The deadline

2005-12-27T16:17:00.000+01:00

Motivated by a current project with late hours of work, this text resulted. In this project, there was a deadline until the productivity start had to happen. Of course, this deadline was given by higher instances not knowing about the work done by the divisions below them (development, operating department).Most of you should know this scenario. Many of you, I guess, have read the excellent book

JGAP 2.5 released

2005-12-03T11:15:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, the new version of JGAP has been released. JGAP is a genetic algorithms package, which is easy to use and which is delivered with ready-to-use components, such as genetic operators, selectors and examples.Try it out now!There are many references available. Check out the JGAP references page

Console Outputs in Unit Test

2005-11-14T09:59:00.000+01:00

During the review of several unit tests in different projects, there are usually tests containing output statements (such as System.out.println or file output). My initial opinion to outputs in tests, especially to console outputs, is that they should be avoided in any case.When thinking further, it seems to me that gathering data in a file could be legitimate for some situations. But console

Online survey for JCP program

2005-08-19T22:23:00.000+02:00

This is the opportunity telling your opinion about the JCP program, including the Java Specification Requests (JSR's). But consider taking some time as you will be occupied with the questionaire for several minutes.To the JCP online survey.Update: the JCP online survey is closed now.

JSR 220 compared to JSR 250

2005-08-17T10:05:00.000+02:00

Recently, I wrote about JSR 250, having a poor quality IMHO. Apologies for writing again about it, but as I saw the draft of JSR 220 (Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0), I felt the force to do so.Just have a look at the public review available. It is structured so clearly, wonderful! The goals are stated in a clear, extensive way at the beginning of the document. Such could be expected of any JSR. Then

JSR 250 (Common Annotations) approved: Why?

2005-07-29T11:24:00.000+02:00

Just these days, JSR 250 has been approved in the public review ballot. Only IBM voted with "no".I cannot understand the process entirely. Here are my reasons (also see my former entries JSR 250 (Common Annotations): Opinion and Is JSR 250 already mature?)Some weeks ago, exactly on 2005-06-25, I send several pages of suggestions to jsr-250-comments@jcp.org (the mail given to do so). No answer,

Physics and Computer Science

2005-07-15T20:17:00.000+02:00

As I discussed in a former entry, Why Quantum Theory is important for Object Orientation, I see a connection, a conceptual link between physics and computer science.That I am not alone with this opinion, although it might sound strange at first, could be seen by the article of Günther Meinhold: Einstein 2005: Modell und Wirklichkeit (model and reality), unfortunately for all non-German speaking

Is JSR 250 already mature?

2005-07-10T18:46:00.000+02:00

As discussed earlier in a more general manner, I have the feeling that JSR 250 is away from a publishable form. Here are some of my concrete suggestions on how to pimp up the current paper released on June, 21st. I already sent them to the JSR commission as an RTF-document containing of several pages:Define what the JSR 250 really is about. There is no commen consensus about which aspects should

JSR 250 (Common Annotations): Opinion

2005-07-07T08:45:00.000+02:00

The public review of the JSR 250 (Common Annotations for the Java Platform) has been published on June, 21st. After looking thru the list of annotations provided, I felt somewhat puzzled. IMHO, there is no clear line visible, no clear concept recognizable on which the selection of the annotation proposals is based.I will write another entry soon explaining in more detail what I have written to

Naming conventions for variables

2005-07-07T08:21:00.000+02:00

After several years of experience in software development, I found a way of naming variables (attributes, fields, field declarations, as you like) that I feel convenient with.First of all, in any class representing a business object (i.e., that contains business logic to a certain amount) there should only be private variables. Protected variables don't allow for implementing the Observer pattern

Intentionally failing JUnit tests

2005-06-06T19:15:00.000+02:00

In the JUnit mailing list, I followed a discussion about how to implement tests that are failing intentionally with an exception, i.e. the existence of an exception is seen as correct and the other case is a failed test.Several proposals were made. Let me cite the initial comment on the subject partially:--------------- snip Someone in our team writes his tests like this:try{

JDO: My opinion

2005-02-22T07:48:00.000+01:00

Due to the, say, failure of JDO (see the public review ballot) some developers (about a thousand) "signed" the Petition to the Java Community Process Executive Committee.My opinion about JDO in some short statements is:JDO is transparent in a different way than, for example, java.io.Serializable is. JDO manipulates class files, not the source code. I don't like this as you could run into

When TDD is not optimal

2005-02-17T11:48:00.000+01:00

As a big fan of TDD, I often use it, admittedly mainly in a sort of poisoned form. I am not writing all tests before writing the code. At least half of it I write after "semi-completing" a method or a bunch of methods.These days I wanted to bring in the functionality of a third-party open source framework into code of mine. But at the beginning I was not sure if the concepts of my framework and

Sourceforge in trouble?

2005-02-15T07:40:00.000+01:00

For every sourceforge project there is a nice usage statistics reflecting the number of page views and downloads per day (or other time spans if you want).But since January, 15th, over one month ago, no further statistical data is shown.Sourceforge knows about this and informs that they are going onto a new statistics system:"Project statistics data for 2005 that is omitted will not be processed

Why Quantum Theory is important for Object Orientation

2005-02-01T10:29:00.000+01:00

Historical information Quantum Theory is the most precise complex theory we have today. There is no other theory of such universality and brilliancy. The theory was created by Max Planck in the year 1900. In his earlier years, Planck wanted to study physics and was told that this would not be beneficial as anything of importance had already been discovered. Good for us he did not follow that

Resources related to "Information Engineering"

2005-01-27T13:30:00.000+01:00

The science I want to call Information Engineering here copes with the evaluation of data in order to to obtain information and the extraction of high-priority information (filtering out data of lower interest) from a plethora of information. Information Engineering helps reduce the problem of information overflow, just remember the latest prominent example of Cassini-Huygens. The following

Visions for Evolutionary Algorithms

2005-01-27T10:09:00.000+01:00

Browing sourceforge and other open-source platforms, you find myriads of free software packages. Many of them have a glance of sophistication. But what about their practical use? An article from these days states that the NSA is in high need of a capable software tool that can identify information having a potential of being valuable. The NSA wants to "connect dots" and needs informatics to do so

Java UI Frameworks: Far way to satisfaction!

2005-01-24T15:56:00.000+01:00

Similar to my former entry, Java Persistence: Failed, I have been stimulated by another entry, this time from Alexey Maslov, who asks Do we need another UI framework?. In my comment to his entry, I stated that in my eyes, there is no real UI framework existent for Java, being capable of representing a common platform for UI development. Either it is too expensive (I want a framework for free,

Developers Don't Write Documentation

2005-01-24T09:47:00.000+01:00

An article titled Developers Don't Write Documentation can be found at OpenXource. It is written with some wit and is worth reading. As the article's title expresses, it is the opinion of the author that developers shouldn't focus on writing documentation. Documentation is meant here as documentation for the user of the software not technical documentation I assume. Reasons Well, I also assume

Test-Driven Development: Useful Techniques, Resources

2005-01-23T22:09:00.000+01:00

Test-Driven Development (TDD) is subject of many publications. I feel that it never was seen as a hype. From my point of view, it is a really useful concept helping great in reducing errors. That seems proven, IMO. I used TDD in several projects, currently with JGAP and with a software package based on JRefactory.I found out that many test cases rely on the same testing techniques, such as:Type

Java Persistence: Failed

2005-01-23T13:35:00.000+01:00

As the rejection of the JSR 243 shows, one of the most promising persistence strategies for Java, JDO, is doomed to fail. One could say that on a later time errors could be corrected. But nowadays we cannot affort waiting too long with most important aspects of an architecture. I have been concerned about Java persistence in general since I began coping with persistency in Java. For me, there is

Agile Software Development

2005-01-23T01:22:00.000+01:00

Agile PrinciplesAfter reading the book Lean Software Development by the Poppendiecks (can be found in your popular bookstore) I felt somewhat enlighted. The authors shared their experiences and ideas about good project management and processing. Some of them I liked very much. Here is my personal impression of Agility and XP. It should be clear that XP and Agility are not a magic bullet - the

Service-Oriented Architecure (SOA): Bubbles?

2005-01-22T22:54:00.000+01:00

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been in the media since several months. Which also has to do with the marketing of big companies, commercial blogs or people jumping on using the buzzword (SOA is one, IMO). One can find articles about SOA in all the popular magazines around here in Germany. In other countries this should be true as well. Just take some popular magazines (I could easily

5 Books for Java Developers

2005-01-21T14:14:00.000+01:00

R.J. Lorimer posted his suggestions for 5 books that should be noticed by Java developers. As I am coping mainly with software architecture and Design Patterns, my list is sort of related with that. Additionally, I read several books on different topics (e.g. Streamlined Object Modelling) which I would not recommend here. Here is my list as I have quite different suggestions than R.J.:

Open Source Projects: Which license I chose

2005-01-14T23:23:00.000+01:00

Recently I had the need considering the license for a Java open source project administered by myself, JGAP. JGAP is a Genetic Algorithms Package that helps solving problems in a Darwinian way. To Open-Source or not? Well, the thing about open source software is, that it is available to anyone accepting the license agreement. And that agreement is the point. Some people may not want to make

Design Patterns - Boondoggle or State-of-the-Art?

2005-01-13T11:55:00.000+01:00

Real-world discrepancies Everyone's talking about methods and concepts helping in making the development of sofware easier and more fruitful. Design Patterns are supposed to help as well. But there seems to be a discrepancy between academical research activities and practical use of patterns in pofessional software development. In academia, patterns are a hot topic producing uncountable

Annotations in Java (1.5)

2005-01-12T10:09:00.000+01:00

Annotations have been introduced to Java officially by the JSR 175. Previously they were most known by XDoclet, IMO.There have been many blogs and articles on the subject, but I will explain annotations from my point of view and assembles some resources you can find at the end of my blog entry. I took some information from the SUN article (although I wrote this entry before the article has been

Genetic Algorithms with JGAP

2005-01-11T16:31:00.000+01:00

JGAP - Framework for Genetic Algorithms (and Genetic Programming)There are several frameworks available to help you building up your own GA implementation without coping with the sticky details. One of these frameworks is JGAP. I am administrator of this project. There has been much feedback from JGAP users supporting the package with very positive feedback. The new release 2.0 was just published