<@U0F3291QE> <@U0HUJ25V1> don't shortchange the sc...

# tornadofx

[carlw]

@edvin @thomasnield don't shortchange the scheduling complexity...i saw a contractor run into trouble underestimating the complexity of university course, instructor, and room scheduling; still on mainframes in many universities in the US and UK (those are just the ones I know personally) because of this

[thomasnield]

I am starting to see that scheduling anywhere is hard. Airline schedules are a special kind of complicated.

[carlw]

IIRC from my MBA linear algebra is used in the good algorithms. Don't see my textbook around, but there are some examples around the internet from papers and MATLAB examples

[edvin]

I always end up with something that is overly complex with regards to the problem it is supposed to solve.

[thomasnield]

@edvin it happens, I am wondering if there's a point being clever as a programmer is no longer effective, and you actually have to learn math @carlw that's what I heard as well, the good algorithms use linear algebra.

[carlw]

I'd start with the math in this case. At least you should find a good starting point for the constraints (ex room limitations, instructor limitations, courses that shouldn't run concurrently for the students' benefit)

[thomasnield]

Funny you say that I just bought a book on linear algebra this morning

[thomasnield]

Thankfully I won't have to build these systems and maintain them. But I will be prototyping models and building in house tools

[edvin]

That's absolutely true. Look at the Scala guys, everything is about math for them. Some times when I'm stuck on a complex problem and I have heaps of messy code that's not working the way I do, I call for one of our math heads. He looks at the screen for a couple of minutes, then gives me 6 lines of code that does the same I did in 100. It's frustrating. I think there is something to this math business. hehe

[thomasnield]

@edvin lol, maybe there is. If I ever find out I will let you know.