Hi,

I'm writing a genetic programming (GP) system (in C but that's a minor detail). I've read a lot of the literature (Koza, Poli, Langdon, Banzhaf, Brameier, et al) but there are some implementation details I've never seen explained. For example:

I'm using a steady state population rather than a generational approach, primarily to use all of the computer's memory rather than reserve half for the interim population.

Q1. In GP, as opposed to GA, when you perform crossover you select two parents but do you create one child or two, or is that a free choice you have?

Q2. In steady state GP, as opposed to a generational system, what members of the population do the children created by crossover replace? This is what I haven't seen discussed. Is it the two parents, or is it two other, randomly-selected members? I can understand if it's the latter, and that you might use negative tournament selection to choose members to replace, but would that not create premature convergence? (After a crossover event the population contains the two original parents plus two children of those parents, and two other random members get removed. Elitism is inherent.)

Q3. Is there a Web forum or mailing list focused on GP? Oddly I haven't found one. Yahoo's GP group is used almost exclusively for announcements, the Poli/Langdon Field Guide forum is almost silent, and GP discussions on general/game programming sites like gamedev.net are very basic.

Thanks for any help you can provide!