[Coin-announce] Coopr 3.1 Release

[William Hart]

We are pleased to announce the release of Coopr 3.1 (3.1.5325). Coopr
is a collection of Python software packages that supports a diverse
set of optimization capabilities for formulating and analyzing
optimization models.

The following are highlights of this release:

- Solvers
   * Interfaces for !OpenOpt solvers
   * Many solver interface improvements
   * A solver checker to validate solver interfaces
   * Improved support for SOS constraints (cplex, gurobi)
   * PH supports nonlinear models
   * PH-specific solver servers

- Modeling
   * Comprehensive rework of blocks and connectors for modular modeling
   * New !VarList component
   * Added comprehensive support for set expressions

- Usability enhancements
   * New 'coopr' command has subcommands that consolidate Coopr scripting
   * Added support to connect to databases with ODBC
   * Made JSON the default results format

- Other
   * Efficiency improvements in model generation, memory, runtime, etc.
   * Preliminary support for black-box applications
   * Deprecated modeling syntax in Coopr 3.0 is no longer legal

See https://software.sandia.gov/trac/coopr/wiki/GettingStarted for
instructions for getting started with Coopr.  Installers are available
for MS Windows and Unix operating systems to simplify the installation
of Coopr packages along with the third-party Python packages that they
depend on.  These installers can also automatically install extension
packages from Coin Bazaar.

Enjoy!

 - Coopr Developer Team
 - coopr-developers at googlecode.com
 - https://software.sandia.gov/trac/coopr/wiki/Documentation/Developers


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About Coopr
-----------

Coopr is a collection of Python software packages that supports a
diverse set of optimization capabilities for formulating and analyzing
optimization models.

A key driver for Coopr development is Pyomo, an open source tool for
modeling optimization applications in Python. Pyomo can be used to
define symbolic problems, create concrete problem instances, and solve
these instances with standard solvers. Thus, Pyomo provides a
capability that is commonly associated with algebraic modeling
languages like AMPL and GAMS.

Coopr has also proven an effective framework for developing high-level
optimization and analysis tools. For example, the PySP package
provides generic solvers for stochastic programming.  PySP leverages
the fact that Pyomo's modeling objects are embedded within a
full-featured high-level programming language, which allows for
transparent parallelization of subproblems using Python parallel
communication libraries.

Coopr development is hosted by Sandia National Laboratories and COIN-OR:

 * https://projects.coin-or.org/Coopr
 * https://software.sandia.gov/coopr

See http://groups.google.com/group/coopr-forum/ for online discussions of Coopr.