--Introduction-- This project seeks to provide an introduction to core concepts in genetics, evolution, and programming. The material makes no assumptions regarding the hypothetical students knowledge of evolution, taking an approach of 'show' rather than 'tell'. A basic understanding of ecology and statistics may enhance one's appreciation of the subject.

Regarding experience with computers and programming, some basic skills and tools are required. One should have Python 2.7 installed, have a good text editor, and be able to type instructions in a terminal. For Linux and Mac, gedit is one of many good text editing options for beginners, and for Windows I recommend Notepad++. Linux and Mac users should know how to open Terminal, and Windows users should know how to open Command Prompt. There are a few ways to run python programs, and one should familiarize oneself with how to supply arguments to a commandline program. A commandline example:

'python run_sim.py --popsize 128'

In this instance, "--popsize 128" tells the program from the start to use 128 as the value for the population size in the simulation.

Each exercise should provide one with the needed cues to begin examining the code for important details and how to run the code (see each README.txt). Depending on ones experience, some parts of the code may be slightly complex. Comments in the code are provided to help guide one through what tasks are being accomplished. Each exercise should come with a set of questions to help highlight critical concepts.

--Acknowledgments-- This project was sparked by a post by Christopher Gilbert at MotomaSTYLE:

http://motomastyle.com/genetic-programming-the-python-way-the-basics/

which was a Python implementation of Chris Eigner's Genetic Programming 101 in Ruby:

http://eignerchris.tumblr.com/post/428590094/genetic-programming-101-ruby

I owe them thanks for their work which prompted me along into genetic programming and for some inspiration of my own code. I hope that my own work might do the same for others.

• Pablo -