<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I have decided that cbc is sufficiently
robust that I should stop throwing in significant changes on a daily basis.
So I am declaring version 1.00.00 of cbc. The preferred stand
alone executable can be obtained by "make solve" in Cbc directory.
This executable has much of the functionality of "clp"
for LPs. In a similar way as with clp you can get more information
by ? or gomory? etc. That aspect needs more work, but anyone can
help by querying the short descriptions and expanding the long descriptions.
Of course if anyone wants to write a smooth interface, I would be
delighted. I would definitely recommend using "solve" to
play around with various strategies before coding your own driver.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I expect 1.00.00 to be quickly followed
by 1.00.01 as I fix some bugs but I am going to try and be more predictable
in my changes. Bugs will be fixed and the version number may change
if the bug was significant. If changes are made for tuning purposes
this will be noted in the main program file COIN/Cbc/Test/CoinSolve.cpp
and I will try and leave the old tuning as an option. New instances
of classes will be added freely as they will not impact code. So,
for example, I have been asked to implement n-way branching. I should
have done it earlier. This will not affect people not using this.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">CBC is complex in that it uses Cgl,
Osi and Coin. It also is closely linked to OsiClp and Clp and these
links will increase for performance purposes. This can make it difficult
to maintain compatibility while developing new ideas. So I will be
using COIN_NEXT_VERSION in all code (especially Cbc, OsiClp and Clp) so
that people will not be impacted by changes (unless they are bold) until
I declare the next version - which should be 1.01.00.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">As always comments and suggestions are
welcome.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">John Forrest</font>