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would you be able to offer some examples and some discussion of how to choose?

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4419-1665-5

> Handbook of Metaheuristics

There is a third edition, 9 years later: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-91086-4

Great coverage — simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization.

Genetic algorithms are known to produce quasi-optimal results in a short time, if set up accordingly. They can be also applied to problems where constraints are very complex to explicitly formulate. Designing one is no picnic, though, and always problem-specific.

Interesting.

What do you mean by quasi optimal?

Genetic algorithms product quasi optimal results but simulated annealing will not?

Quasi-optimal means you can't prove that the algorithm will always find the optimal solution, though for all practical purposes, the algorithm will find it for over 99% of the time.

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