I have this problem containing some inequations and requirement to minimize a value. After doing some research on the Internet, I came to conclusion that using Prolog might be the easiest way to solve it. However, I never used Prolog before, and I would hate to waste my time learning it just to discover that it is not the right tool for this job.
Please, if you know Prolog, take a look at this problem and tell me if Prolog is the right one. Or, if you know of some other language that is really suited for this.
a + b + c >= 100
d + e + f >= 50
g + h >= 30
if (8b + 2e + 7h > 620) then y = 0.8 else y = 1.0
if (d > 35) then x = 0.9 else x = 1.0
5xa + 8yb + 5c + 3xd + 2ye + 2f + 6xg + 7yh = w.
I need to find the values for a, b, c, d, e, f, g and h that minimize w.
Please note that the above is only an example. In real program, I would use up to 10000 variables and up to 20 if..then clauses. This rules out linear programming as an alternative technique because it would take a prohibitive amount of RAM and time to test all LP problems.
I’m not really asking for code, although I’d be grateful for some hint how to tackle this if Prolog is really good for it. Thanks.
I haven’t worked with similar problems before, so I can’t give you any direct suggestions. However, I would not use Prolog for it. Prolog is really good for dealing with symbolic problems (a classic example would be the Einstein puzzle), but its math support is very awkward; it feels like math was tacked on as an afterthought.