Re: [jgap-users] Is Chromosome serializable?

[<ric...@ca...>]

Neil,

> We'll definitely take a second look at the support for Java serialization

> and either polish it up or remove it altogether.

Please don't remove it altogether! :)

While I think serialization of Chromosomes themselves is flawed (at least,
with the way the 'active configuration' currently must get set in the
constructor) and probably not needed, serialization of Genes (and Gene
arrays) is really, really good!

While XML is great for all sorts of things, it's incredibly bulky, so for
something like a genetically evolved neural network (where you may have
tens of thousands of genes) the 'compact' serialization approach is very
desirable!

I would even go so far as to request your pre-packaged genes implement
'Externalizable' instead of 'Serializable' (and use 'writeInt' and
'writeBoolean', etc.) because every byte helps.

Richard.