
                        Math::Evol

This module implements the evolution search strategy.
Derivatives of the objective function are not required.
Constraints can be incorporated.  The caller must supply initial
values for the variables and for the initial step sizes.

This evolution search strategy is a random strategy, and as such is
particularly robust and will cope well with large numbers of variables
or rugged objective funtions.  It derives from the 'EVOL' Fortran routine
of Schwefel, which uses Rechenberg's work on step-size adjustment.

Evol.pm works either automatically with an objective function to be
minimised, or interactively with a (suitably patient) human who at
each step will choose the better of two (or several) possibilities.

A subroutine (text_evol) is supplied allowing the evolution of numeric
parameters in a text file. The parameters are identified by special
comments, which also supply the step sizes. This makes possible the
optimisation of code according to human judgement, for example PostScript
code.  A script ps_evol is included for fine-tuning PostScript drawings.

Also included is a call-compatible translation into Lua.

To install:
	perl Makefile.PL
	make install test

For up-to-date source, see http://search.cpan.org/~pjb

        Peter J Billam       http://www.pjb.com.au
