Solvi: A visual constraint modeling tool
Date
2024
Authors
Zhu, Xu
Nacenta, Miguel
Akgün, Özgür
Zenkovitch, Daniel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Computer Languages
Abstract
Discrete constraint problems surface often in everyday life. Teachers might group students with complex considerations and hospital administrators need to produce staff rosters. Constraint programming (CP) provides techniques to efficiently find solutions. However, there remains a key challenge: these techniques are still largely inaccessible because expressing constraint problems requires sophisticated programming and logic skills. In this work we contribute a language and tool that leverage knowledge of how non-experts conceptualize problems to facilitate the expression of constraint models. Additionally, we report the results of a study surveying the advantages and remaining challenges towards making CP accessible to the wider public.
Description
The authors would like to thank Daniel Zenkovitch for his input into the Solvi application development.
Keywords
constraints programming, visualization, visual modeling, visual language, human computer interaction
Citation
Zhu, X., Nacenta, M. A., Akgün, Ö., & Zenkovitch, D. (2024). Solvi: A visual constraint modeling tool. Journal of Computer Languages, 78, 101242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cola.2023.101242