

CSSEvolve: guided stylesheet evolution (release inspired by recent evolving A/B testing post) - tectonic
http://somanyschemes.com/2008/11/26/cssevolve-guided-stylesheet-evolution/

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markbao
2009: CSS stylesheets become self-aware and independently perform evolution

Someone set us up the bomb.

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snorkel
I coded something similar a loooong time ago (long since lost the code) except
that it had a hot-or-not type of grading system so the user would be shown
each variation one a time, then user simply clicks on a rating for how much
they like it on a scale of 0 - 10 and then they see the next variation. Of
course the challenge is to seed it with meaningful font, layout, and color
scheme templates otherwise the user gets bored slogging through hideous
variants with purple fonts and lime green backgrounds.

I hesitate to even mention it because some jerk will run off and patent it,
but the real killer app of this kind guided design is architecture design
software. Imagine a screen that simply shows you 4 possible variants of
architectural plan, you choose just the ones you like, and the software cross-
breeds the preferred designs and shows you 4 other variants and so on. People
who don't know a damn thing about architecture could still use the software
because they only need to point at what they like, and anyone can do that.

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andr
While the direction this is taking is ingenious, the concrete implementation
is useless. There's a reason why genetic algorithms are automated - most of
the mutations are useless, so it's a waste of person's time to look at all of
them.

What they could do is have the system teach itself which types of mutations go
well with people. body { text-decoration: line-through } is not something
anyone would want, yet it's the first thing I got.

Edit: minor complaint - no UTF8 support.

Another idea - a flicker mode, with the original and evolved design switching
every half second or so. That's how astronomers detected disappearing stars in
the past.

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alexandros
mindblowing! i could easily use this to optimize the appearance of the css in
my websites... excellent work.

