frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Computational Complexity of Air Travel Planning [pdf] (2003)

http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-complexity/ITA-software-travel-complexity.pdf
76•rochoa•8mo ago

Comments

buildsjets•8mo ago
This is well over 20 years old and is based on pre 9/11 flight data. I would suspect that a lot has changed since then. So proceed with no caution at all.
gwern•8mo ago
Since these sorts of things usually only get more and more complex over time, I would guess that it's all still true, but much more so.
throw0101b•8mo ago
(2003)
throw0101b•8mo ago
The PDF was produced by ITA, which famously used Common Lisp:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

From 2001, a message from the same author as the linked paper:

> (Here's an email Carl de Marcken of ITA Software sent to a friend, describing their experiences using Lisp in one of the software industry's most demanding applications.)

* https://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html

Qem•8mo ago
Are there any public, open, comprehensive datasets on flights?
dieselerator•8mo ago
> Are there any public, open, comprehensive datasets on flights?

Airlines and commercial aviation operators schedule their own flights. That is a dynamic schedulle. So, perhaps there is no "comprehensive data set".

However, FlightAware makes publicly available scheduled and completed flight data over many routes in the USA. You can search by route and get a list of flights.

Flight information includes filed departure time, route of flight, and speed. For completed flights actual time, altitude, and route is shown. For example, a search on the route Dallas/Fort Worth to Austin lists 45 flights.

I hope that helps.

foundart•8mo ago
A very interesting dive into, as the title says, the computational complexity of air travel planning. Graph algorithms with lots of complexity added due to the wide variety of fare conditions that airlines have dreamt up over the years.

The article may be from 2003 but I would call it an evergreen. While I imagine some of the details have changed since then, I suspect that the complexity has only grown since then.

foundart•8mo ago
It makes me wonder: Would an airline that drastically simplified its fares be more likely to appear in flight search results?

Simplifying the fares would make it less computationally expensive and, in theory, could take fewer steps to answer a flight planning query.

Imagine a flight search planner that, say, fanned out N airline-specific workers when handling a planning query and then displayed to the user whatever results it got back within some time limit. If FooAir had simple fares, the FooAir searcher would likely run faster than searchers for other airlines. Thus it would be more likely to return results for more queries, assuming the deadline is fairly tight because of usability metrics. (People don't tend to stick around waiting for slow results.)

sjburt•8mo ago
At least a few years ago (~2014), the fare search was actually nearly instant, but all major airfare search sites added a delay because customers had the impression they were getting a better deal when they had to wait. It seems like the delay has been dialed back lately.
teleforce•8mo ago
This is a very popular article that get submitted every now and then (nearly every year) [1].

I think this kind of problem would be a very nice for logic, optimization and constraint programming that probably can be solved with modern tools like Google OR-Tool or Monash University MiniZinc [1],[2],[3].

[1] Past:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Computational%20Complexity%20o...

[2] Logic, Optimization, and Constraint Programming: A Fruitful Collaboration - John Hooker - CMU (2023) [video]:

https://www.youtube.com/live/TknN8fCQvRk

[3] Google OR-Tools:

https://developers.google.com/optimization

[4] MiniZinc:

https://www.minizinc.org/

Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

https://public-sans.digital.gov/
112•mhb•1h ago•32 comments

Netflix: Open Content

https://opencontent.netflix.com/
371•tosh•6h ago•60 comments

Non-Zero-Sum Games

https://nonzerosum.games/
184•8organicbits•4h ago•51 comments

The British Empire's Resilient Subsea Telegraph Network

https://subseacables.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-british-empires-resilient-subsea.html
53•giuliomagnifico•3h ago•8 comments

Postgres extension complements pgvector for performance and scale

https://github.com/timescale/pgvectorscale
40•flyaway123•5d ago•1 comments

The Legacy of Undersea Cables

https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/the-legacy-of-undersea-cables/
12•teleforce•1h ago•0 comments

Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

https://hsu.cy/2025/12/times-new-american/
97•firexcy•3h ago•58 comments

Go away Python

https://lorentz.app/blog-item.html?id=go-shebang
174•baalimago•7h ago•125 comments

Approachable Swift Concurrency

https://fuckingapproachableswiftconcurrency.com/en/
59•wrxd•3h ago•23 comments

Hive (YC S14) Is Hiring a Staff Software Engineer (Data Systems)

https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hive.co/cb0dc490-0e32-4734-8d91-8b56a31ed497
1•patman_h•1h ago

GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

https://www.gog.com/blog/gog-is-getting-acquired-by-its-original-co-founder-what-it-means-for-you/
788•haunter•23h ago•463 comments

No strcpy either

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/12/29/no-strcpy-either/
108•firesteelrain•3h ago•46 comments

Stranger Things creator says turn off "garbage" settings

https://screenrant.com/stranger-things-creator-turn-off-settings-premiere/
293•1970-01-01•16h ago•527 comments

Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol

https://fontgenerator.design/symbols
104•yarlinghe•5d ago•45 comments

Tesla's 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

https://electrek.co/2025/12/29/tesla-4680-battery-supply-chain-collapses-partner-writes-down-dea/
564•coloneltcb•22h ago•623 comments

Hacking Washing Machines [video]

https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-hacking-washing-machines
169•clausecker•14h ago•35 comments

ManusAI Joins Meta

https://manus.im/blog/manus-joins-meta-for-next-era-of-innovation
279•gniting•17h ago•170 comments

The future of software development is software developers

https://codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/11/25/the-future-of-software-development-is-software-devel...
313•cdrnsf•21h ago•339 comments

Nicolas Guillou, French ICC judge sanctioned by the US and “debanked”

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/nicolas-guillou-french-icc-judge-sanct...
204•lifeisstillgood•5h ago•145 comments

Concurrent Hash Table Designs

https://bluuewhale.github.io/posts/concurrent-hashmap-designs/
19•signa11•3d ago•0 comments

Charm Ruby – Glamorous Terminal Libraries for Ruby

https://charm-ruby.dev/
71•todsacerdoti•8h ago•10 comments

UNIX Fourth Edition

http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/README
84•dcminter•1w ago•7 comments

AI is forcing us to write good code

https://bits.logic.inc/p/ai-is-forcing-us-to-write-good-code
251•sgk284•21h ago•186 comments

Turning an old Amazon Kindle into a eInk development platform (2021)

https://blog.lidskialf.net/2021/02/08/turning-an-old-kindle-into-a-eink-development-platform/
48•fanf2•4d ago•8 comments

Singapore Study Links Heavy Infant Screen Time to Teen Anxiety

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-30/singapore-study-links-heavy-infant-screen-time...
45•1vuio0pswjnm7•3h ago•20 comments

Google is dead. Where do we go now?

https://www.circusscientist.com/2025/12/29/google-is-dead-where-do-we-go-now/
974•tomjuggler•19h ago•771 comments

Graph Algorithms in Rayon

https://davidlattimore.github.io/posts/2025/11/27/graph-algorithms-in-rayon.html
32•PaulHoule•4d ago•0 comments

MongoDB Server Security Update, December 2025

https://www.mongodb.com/company/blog/news/mongodb-server-security-update-december-2025
99•plorkyeran•15h ago•40 comments

Win32 is the stable Linux ABI

https://loss32.org/
143•krautburglar•3h ago•109 comments

2025 Was Another Exceptionally Hot Year

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/2025-second-hottest-year
5•Brajeshwar•44m ago•0 comments