Programming and using an evolutionary algorithm
Genetic and evolutionary algorithms

The ingredients of a “canonical” evolutionary algorithm may be described in relatively simple terms; however, what follows should be regarded merely as a “recipe”. In practice, effective applications of evolutionary algorithms are often considerably more sophisticated, the central challenge being to adapt, or indeed to design, bespoke operators that reflect the specific characteristics of the problem at hand.

At its core, a classical evolutionary algorithm consists of a generational loop acting upon populations of individuals, each corresponding to a candidate solution to the problem