While researching genetic programming as one possible way to discover near-optimal solutions to the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP), I came across this cool interactive demonstration of genetic programming using JavaScript. I found myself playing with it for a good while, enjoying watching the solutions evolve and converge under different fitness constraints.

The page itself doesn’t provide much information on what’s going on, but you can get a quick overview of genetic programming here. For deeper investigation, try genetic-programming.org, a site maintained by John Koza, one of the major figures in genetic programming research. There are links to all sorts of resources including all of Koza’s publications, many of which are available online.