Introduction to genetic algorithms

Genetic algorithms in general, and parallel genetic algorithms in particular, are of major significance to the development of the new generation of IT applications. The potential which parallel genetic algorithms offer over existing information processing techniques is enormous. Genetic algorithms are ideally suited to the processing, classification and control of very-large and varied data. There are a growing number of programming systems for implementation of genetic algorithms. They can be grouped in three major classes: application-oriented, algorithm-oriented and general programming systems. This paper briefly describes these three classes.