Lessons learned in application of evolutionary computation to a set of optimization tasks

Many GECCO papers discuss lessons learned in a particular application, but few papers discuss lessons learned over an ensemble of problem areas. A scan of the tables of contents of the Proceedings from GECCO 2005 and 2006 showed no paper title stressing lessons learned although the term "pitfall" appeared occasionally in abstracts, typically applying to a particular practice. We present in this paper a set of broadly applicable "lessons learned" in the application of evolutionary computing (EC) techniques to a variety of problem areas and present advice related to encoding, running, monitoring, and managing an evolutionary computing task.