[metslib] First public release of METSlib Metaheuristics library (0.4.3).

[Mirko Maischberger]

Dear all,

I'm pleased to announce the first METSlib release on COIN-OR.
METSlib is a metaheuristics modeling framework and optimization
toolkit in C++ released under the GPLv3 or, at your opinion, the CPL 1.0.

The home page for the project is https://projects.coin-or.org/metslib

In METSlib models and algorithms are modular: any provided search
algorithm can be applied to the same model. On the other hand no
assumption is made on the model, you can work on any problem type:
timetabling, assignment problems, vehicle routing, bin-packing and so on.

Once you have implemented your model in the problem framework, the
library makes easy testing different Tabu Search strategies or even
different algorithms (Simulated Annealing or other local search based
algorithms) with a few lines of code.

METSlib hides the nuts and bolts of the algorithms from your code, you
are only supposed to code the problem logic, not the search algorithm.
This results in clearer code, which is also easier to read: your search
strategy can be better understood and modified with less effort.

The toolkit implements the basics of some metaheuristic algorithms:

* Local search;
* Simulated Annealing;
* Tabu Search.

It's really easy to code other metaheuristics using the previous ones as
building blocks:

* Random Restart Local Search
* Variable Neighborhood Search
* Iterated Local Search

You can get the latest METSlib 0.4.3 sources and docs from the following links

 * http://www.coin-or.org/download/source/metslib/metslib-0.4.3.tgz
 * http://www.coin-or.org/download/source/metslib/Examples-0.4.3.tgz

You can build the library with .the usual /configure; make; make install.

The documentation can also be found online:

 * http://www.coin-or.org/metslib/docs/releases/0.4.3/html/

The release has been tested on Ubuntu 8.04 and 9.04, on OpenSolaris 2009.06
and on Windows/Cygwin1.7 (using gcc4)

Cheers,
Mirko Maischberger