Heuristic

[MRAB]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 6/24/2010 9:13 PM, Marcos wrote:
>> I have a store, so I want to maximize the profit. I have all the
>> suppliers with diferent prices, some providers can send products to a
>> client an others not, this has a plus price. Some providers has a
>> discount over the tansport if a quantity is reached.
>>
>> Sometimes its better to me receive the order and resend to the client
>> if I have a transport discount.
>>
>> Not all the suppliers has all products for a order.
>>
>> So I want to create a function which I can pass the data, and
>> generates all the possibilities so I can find the maximum profit.
>>
>> Have I to use heuristics? Do you know some examples?.
> 
> You would not use a heuristic to generate all possibilities. You might 
> use one to *avoid* doing that, and still get a good, not necessarily 
> optimal, answer.
> 
True. Basically there are two ways of approaching the problem. One is to
try all the combinations, which will guarantee that you'll find the best
solution, but if there are an enormous number of combinations then that
could take a very long time. The other way is to use a heuristic to get
an reasonable solution in an reasonable time. It's a trade-off.

 > Wikipedia has an general entry on 'heuristic'.
 > Algorithm books often specifically discuss heuristic algorithms.