title: How does one get started with procedural generation?
body: <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation" rel="noreferrer">Procedural generation</a> has been brought into the spotlight recently (by Spore, MMOs, etc), and it seems like an interesting/powerful programming technique.<br /><br />
  My questions are these:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Do you know of any mid-sized projects that utilize procedural generation techniques?</li>
  <li>What language/class of languages is best for procedural generation?</li>
  <li>Can you use procedural generation for "serious" code? (i.e., not a game)</li>
  </ul>