Back from the dead!

[andrian]

Hey everyone, it's been years since I've posted here. Glad to see the language hasn't completely died yet! It got me an A on my senior project in highschool! I wanted to say "hi" and also discuss a little idea I've been pondering.

I'm thinking to create some kind of "evolutionary simulator." I know, it's been done before, but I'd like to try it again, just to see what I can come up with. Anyway, I'd like this to be graphically represented, with actual creatures living, dying, and passing on their genes. And herein lies the question: What genes should I try to code? How would these genes express themselves, and how could the user examine them? This also raises the question of data structures, of course, since the more artificial life forms we can whip up, the better the simulation will be.

Once again, glad to be back and to see that some of my old pals are still hanging around on the forums.

[matthew]

Hi andrian, nice to see you back. :-)

I don't think I ever got an 'A' when I was at school, so well done.

As you probably already know there have been a few examples of Conway's Game of Life written in Basic4GL. You can probably find them with a little forum searching.

As for your other questions, I haven't got a clue where you'd start but I suppose you could try looking at some Genetic Simulators such as Red Lynx or the Classical Genetics Simulator.

[Darkjester]

Glad to see you again adrian! You should implement genes for aggression, and include things such as changes in environment as factors just some thoughts

[andrian]

Well, I've done some work with the Prisoner's Dilemma with genetic algorithms. I'm wondering if maybe I should focus on social behavior for this experiment. Still not sure how I'd do it, but at least that gives me a bit more direction.