A practical knowledge of the Python programming language is essential to work with the examples presented in this book. For better source code understanding, it is preferable to use an IDE that supports Python syntax highlighting and code reference location. If you don't have one installed, you can use Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It is free and cross-platform, and you can download it here: https://code.visualstudio.com.

Python and most of the libraries we discuss in this book are cross-platform, and compatible with Windows, Linux, and macOS. All experiments described in the book are executed from the command line, so make yourself familiar with the terminal console application installed on the OS of your choice.

To complete the experiment described in Chapter 10, Deep Neuroevolution, you need to have access to a modern PC with Nvidia graphics accelerator GeForce GTX 1080Ti or better. This experiment is also better to run in an Ubuntu Linux environment. Ubuntu is a modern Linux-based OS that is free and powerful. Making yourself familiar with it will help you a lot.

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packt.com.
2. Select the Support tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Hands-on-Neuroevolution-with-Python. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781838824914_ColorImages.pdf.

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "You can start an experiment from the Chapter10 directory by executing the following command."

A block of code is set as follows:

if indices is None:
            indices = np.arange(self.batch_size)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$ conda create -n deep_ne python=3.5

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Select System info from the Administration panel."