[OS] Re: Java wrapper for COIN-OR

[Jun Ma]

Hi Patrick,
For your information, the OS project is also implemented in Java. In fact 
the Java implementation is more comprehensive than our Cpp implementation, 
except that the Automatic Differentiation (AD) in Java is much less 
professional than our Cpp implementation. You can write out OSiL XML 
instance, linear or nonlinear just fine; just don't use the nonlinear AD for
serious use. In terms of performance, Cpp should be faster. Our Cpp 
implementation hardly uses any third party libraries, not even the XML 
parser. Our Java implementation uses quite some external libraries on the 
other hand.

Can't tell you the Java usage. For invoking the OS Web Services, the client 
can be any language, Java maybe more likely. For ourselves, outside of the 
OS project, we have developed general purpose solvers using Java, mainly for 
research purpose though. Then there is another project which we've been 
doing on and off for developing an XQuery based modeling language (OSmL); it 
is also implemented in Java. It natively outputs the standard OSiL instance. 
Then the OS Server that is used for hosting optimization as services is all
implemented in Java (no cpp version).

There is also a .net implementation, only that it doesn't have nonlinear 
instance (don't have time). For various reasons, (mainly nobody requested 
it), we don't have it available on our Web site yet.

The java source is also on the COIN svn site. You can check out at:
https://projects.coin-or.org/svn/OS/branches/OSjava
You are very welcome to contribute to it; we need the help.

The cpp source can be checked out at:
https://projects.coin-or.org/svn/OS/trunk
All the binary distribution (cpp or java) is at
http://www.coin-or.org/download/binary/OS
Manual is at:
http://www.coin-or.org/OS/doc/osUsersManual_1.pdf
Online doc is at:
http://www.coin-or.org/OS/documentation/

Hope it helps.
Jun Ma

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kipp Martin" <kipp.martin at chicagogsb.edu>
To: "Patrick Viry" <patrick.viry at ateji.com>
Cc: <hunsaker at engr.pitt.edu>; <leo at sie.arizona.edu>; <maj at breaktech.com>;
<kmartin at chicagogsb.edu>; <bjarni at maximalsoftware.com>
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Java wrapper for COIN-OR


> Hi Patrick:
>
>
>>
>> My first concern is about the CoinMP dll. We made a first attempt at
>> defining a Java wrapper for CLP, however the CoinMP dll doesn't seem to
>> provide the CLP interface. From what I can see, it only provides methods
>
>> prefixed with "Coin": I couldn't find anything close to a ClpModel class
>
>> with an addRows method in this dll. Did I miss something ? And if not,
>> would it be possible for you to provide a .dll/.so with the CLP
>> interface ? We don't have MSVC and cannot compile the .lib files from
>> your distribution.
>
> I would consider using the Osi interface instead of CoinMP dll. It is
> designed to interface with COIN-OR solvers and is platform independent.
> It does provide a CLP interface. See
>
> projects.coin-or.org/Osi
>
> Our OS (Optimization Services) is even more general in that you can use
> it to hook to nonlinear solvers such as COIN-OR Ipopt. You can also use
> OS to hook to Clp.  You can hook directly to these solvers using either
> an in-memory object OSInstance that represents a very general
> optimization instance or through a string/file in OSiL format.  See
>
> projects.coin-or.org/OS
>
> You can also hook to Osi solvers through OS either locally or on a
> remote server/
>>
>> My second question is about the priority to give to this project. Today
>> no Java wrapper is available for COIN-OR, which obviously means that you
>
>> have no Java users. But I am probably not the first one asking about
>> Java, would you be able to provide a rough estimate about the demand for
>
>> a Java wrapper ?
>
> This I really can't estimate. It may be an example of Say's law, i.e.
> supply creates it own demand. Right now there is not a supply of Java
> software. You  might wish to post to the Coin discussion list to get a
> better feel for Java interest.
>
> http://list.coin-or.org/mailman/listinfo/coin-discuss
>
>> By the way, I noticed a problem on the web site:
>> http://www.coin-or.org/projects/Clp.xml (CLP project home page, XSLT
>> processing failed)
>
> I was not able to duplicate this, at least on Firefox.
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> -- 
> Kipp Martin
> Professor of Operations Research
> and Computing Technology
> Graduate School of Business
> University of Chicago
> 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
> Chicago, IL 60637
> 773-702-7456
> kipp.martin at chicagogsb.edu
> http://gsbkip.chicagogsb.edu
> http://www.coin-or.org
>




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