Genetic Algorithms:

The following are the main differences of Genetic algorithms from other heuristic
methods.

• GA works on a population of possible solutions, while other heuristic methods

use a single solution in their iterations.
• GAs are probabilistic (stochastic), not deterministic.

Advantages:
• Can quickly scan a vast solution set
• Bad proposals do not effect the end solution because they are discarded
• It doesn't have to know any rules of the problem
Disadvantages:
• While the great advantage of GAs is the fact that they find a solution through
evolution, this is also the biggest disadvantage. Evolution is inductive; in nature
life does not evolve towards a good solution - it evolves away from bad
circumstances
• Bitstring representation is critical.

Ant Colony Optimization:

Advantages:
• Inherent parallelism
• Positive Feedback accounts for rapid discovery of good solutions
• Efficient for Traveling Salesman Problem and similar problems
• Can be used in dynamic
Disadvantages:
• Theoretical analysis is difficult
• Sequences of random decisions (not independent)
• Probability distribution changes by iteration
• Research is experimental rather than theoretical
• Time to convergence uncertain (but convergence is guaranteed!)

Hill-climbing
• Trivial to program
• Requires no memory (since no backtracking)
• Local optimum, stuck with local optimum
• If the number of moves is enormous, the algorithm may be inefficient
• If the number of moves is tiny, the algorithm can get stuck easily.

Simulated Annealing:
• Evaluation function design often critical.
• Annealing schedule often critical.
• Unlike hill climbing, simulated annealing chooses a random move from the
neighborhood