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Subject: Alan King Suggestion on Solver and Modeling Languge Interfaces
Hi: I agree totally that the TC should address standards for interfaces between modeling languages and solvers. A standard for representing a problem instance should be tied to a standard for solver APIs. For example, if a solver API wants constraints expressed with upper and lower bounds, it makes little sense to represent a problem instance constraint with a single right hand side and then a <=, >=, or = depending on the type of constraint. Obviously the conversion can be made in a software library, but it is extra work. Indeed, when my colleagues (Bob Fourer and Leo Lopes) and I designed our schema for linear programming we looked at the IBM/COIN OSI and LINDO API so that our data structures would be reasonably compatible. There is chicken and egg problem here of which comes first. Specifying an API for solvers and modeling languages will have a huge impact on the best way to represent problem instances. The converse is also true. I think the COIN OSI is a good place to start for a solver API. The data issue is an important one I would like to address in a different thread. The more I think about this, the more I think the TC should just focus on LP and IP at first. -- Kipp Martin Professor of Operations Research and Computing Technology University of Chicago Graduate School of Business 1101 East 58 Street Chicago IL 60637 773-702-7456
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