On Oct 6, 2007, at 11:55 AM, Simon Kröçer wrote:

>> A salesman wants to call on his customers, each of which is  
>> located in a
>> different city.  He asks you to prepare an itinerary for him that  
>> will minimize
>> his driving miles.  The itinerary must take him to each city  
>> exactly once and
>> return him to his starting point. Can you write a Ruby program to  
>> generate such
>> an itinerary?
>> [...]
>
> Sorry if i'm just stating the obvious - this quiz isn't about  
> finding a
> solution (fast and correct) but to implement the genetic algorithm,  ight?
>
> I'm just asking myself if i missed a (or maybe the) point...

It's true that this quiz resulted from James asking for a quiz  
featuring genetic algorithms, and it's also true that I wish to  
encourage participants to implement a genetic algorithm. On the other  and, any solution to the problem is certainly welcome. Also, given  
the restriction to an n x n grid, it _is_ possible to write a fast,  
exact solution.