My reading is that they're generating programs of gradually increasing length using markov chains (because the original superoptimizer work was generating random programs of progressively greater length until one worked). So not really a classic GP scheme at al.
It seems my definition of Markov Chain Monte Carlo is more specific than yours (approximate a probability distribution using a simpler proportional one and conditional samples) while I am more generous about GP: any search technique using mutation operators on program trees.
What do you make of the fact that the blogger specifically stated that the key to the technique is searching sparsely, which suggests very large jumps and runs counter to the idea of chains? There is also no hint of the idea of probabilistic acceptance. So even my mention of annealing is likely to be mistaken.
Anthropic Principle
Yes. Still doesn't stop me from chuckling at the audacity of things like Random Kitchen Sinks though (google it).
Good question about whether it's sparse searching. To me the point of using markov chains seemed to be to converge more quickly, not to increase coverage (where you'd actually want to introduce more variation).
Annealing is always worth mentioning because a lot of the time, it's a better performer. GAs and GPs carry a lot of systemic overhead.
Annealing is hit or miss. I often have to sample a distribution on a domain that approximates an infinite dimensional space and annealing doesn't cut it for me. There are just far too many modes. Personally, I'd like to see what GAs and GPs have to offer in this regard.
From a mathematical perspective, it looks as though your statement could imply that GA may potentially be viewed as a finite dimensional analogue of GP. Interesting.
It seems my definition of Markov Chain Monte Carlo is more specific than yours (approximate a probability distribution using a simpler proportional one and conditional samples) while I am more generous about GP: any search technique using mutation operators on program trees.
What do you make of the fact that the blogger specifically stated that the key to the technique is searching sparsely, which suggests very large jumps and runs counter to the idea of chains? There is also no hint of the idea of probabilistic acceptance. So even my mention of annealing is likely to be mistaken.
Anthropic Principle
Yes. Still doesn't stop me from chuckling at the audacity of things like Random Kitchen Sinks though (google it).