Minion is a solver for

constraint satisfaction problem Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) are mathematical questions defined as a set of objects whose state must satisfy a number of constraints or limitations. CSPs represent the entities in a problem as a homogeneous collection of finite constra ...

s. Unlike

constraint programming Constraint programming (CP) is a paradigm for solving combinatorial problems that draws on a wide range of techniques from artificial intelligence, computer science, and operations research. In constraint programming, users declaratively state th ...

toolkits, which expect users to write programs in a traditional programming language like

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily ...

, Minion takes a text file which specifies the problem, and solves using only this. This makes using Minion much simpler, at the cost of much less customization. This limitation allows Minion to be many times faster than competing commercial solvers, for example Minion was found to be faster than the major commercial constraint solver,

CPLEX IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio (often informally referred to simply as CPLEX) is an optimization software package. In 2004, the work on CPLEX earned the first INFORMS Impact Prize. History The CPLEX Optimizer was named for the simplex me ...

(formerly ILOG CPLEX then IBM ILOG).

External links

Minion homepage
Constraint programming {{compu-AI-stub