UI

We sketch a plan for building our optimization application, starting with a bare-bones optimization model and then adding a data connection and simple text-based UI. Later we swap out the AMPL scripting language for Python and the text-based UI for Streamlit, and then containerize the app.

We add a simple but functional, attractive text-based user interface by way of a flat data file formatted for good readability and manual data input.

A look at practical as well as fancy means by which humans can interact with optimization models during development and in production.

Now that our optimization app’s non-model logic script (aka ’the main script’) is in Python, we add a lovely Streamlit UI to replace our text-based UI, created with help from our cheerful AI coding assistant.

Our new Streamlit interface makes it easy to imagine and implement an important new feature: the ability to ‘pin’ one or more suggested LEGO® sets, discarding the others, and resolving, so that the user can iteratively arrive at an attractive collection of buildable sets.