The mating process looks like it is a mathemetical average of various statistics of the mother and father. It wasn't the kind of cool dna I envisioned, where the food search algorithm is a little program that the creatures execute.

If you're interested in writing software that genetically writes other software, check out this amazing book by Koza[1]. It's one of my favorite books that I have on my shelf. Armed with this book and a computer, you can have a ton of fun.

In that book, the author dedicates a chapter to virtual ants, and evolves programs for the ants that control where they move and what search strategies they use based on sensor inputs. And that's by far not the most interesting type of program he evolves. It's a thick book, and there are things like evolving a program to drive a tractor trailer and back it into a loading dock.

As a little bonus, this book was how I ended up understanding the vital importance of AST's, and it's how I first "groked" LISP. LISP isn't a pre-requisite to understanding the book, but you'll understand the big concepts by the end.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Genetic-Programming-Computers-Selectio...