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Comment by surfsvammel | Hacker News Reader

Forgive my ignorance, but what kinds of problems are constraint solving good for?

Can I specify a list of statements, constraints, prioritisations and the have it solve it for the best possible solution? Is that it? If so, I need it to figure out my optimal workout schedule given a handful of constraints (a problem I’ve been thinking about since I started university twenty years ago :) )

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GUI layout can be done by solving constraints, like in Cassowary, which is used in iOS and has implementations in many languages

> Can I specify a list of statements, constraints, prioritisations and the have it solve it for the best possible solution? Is that it? If so, I need it to figure out my optimal workout schedule given a handful of constraints (a problem I’ve been thinking about since I started university twenty years ago :) )

Yes!

At work, a large consulting company, we use constraint programming (actually, mostly mixed integer prog and meta heuristics) to solve problems in logistics scheduling, route optimization, staff assignment, production planning, marketing (pricing, store assortment) finance (portfolio, capital budgeting) and others.

Large companies (think any of the Global 2000) benefit from a couple % improvement on their operations that lead to many $M in savings.

Scheduling problems are a very well established domain for constraint programming, you’d very likely find it easier to express and solve your problem than with other methods.

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