Chapter 2 - Constraint Satisfaction: An Emerging Paradigm

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the emergence of constraint satisfaction, with constraint languages, as a new paradigm within artificial intelligence and computer science. It discusses that constraint satisfaction, in its basic form, involves finding a value for each one of a set of problem variables where constraints specify that some subsets of values cannot be used together. Constraint satisfaction problems have been tackled by a dizzying array of methods, from automata theory to ant algorithms, and are a topic of interest in many fields of computer science and beyond. It also focuses on the basic methods involved in the establishment of constraint satisfaction as a branch of artificial intelligence. This new branch of artificial intelligence, together with related work on programming languages and systems that laid the groundwork for the flourishing of interest in constraint programming languages. The chapter reviews the progress that has been made in making even more powerful methods available to the constraint programme. It concludes that constraint programming is still “somewhat of an art”. The challenge is to make constraint programming more of an engineering activity and constraint technology more transparently accessible to the nonprogrammer.