Heuristic

[Terry Reedy]

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

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy