Fitness first and fatherless crossover
William B. Langdon · Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion · 2021
When programs are very large and fitness evaluation is fast (e.g. due to evaluating only a tiny fraction of the program) it can be efficient to evaluate fitness before creating the program, as only individuals with children need be created. The saving can be > 50% and even in highly converged populations, it saves e-2 = 13.5%.