design patterns - scheduling

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timasmith@hotmail.com - 28 Jun 2006 18:28 GMT

Hi,

There must be many applications with scheduling functionality -
schedule processing, schedule resources, etc. Hell there should be
some enterprise design patterns around it.

So I would like to find something (open source ideally) that I can use
to manage this tricky piece of functionality - trickier if you consider
people in different timezones etc.

Anyone have success with a particular component or open source
scheduling project?

thanks

Tim

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Oliver Wong - 28 Jun 2006 19:14 GMT

> There must be many applications with scheduling functionality -
> schedule processing, schedule resources, etc. Hell there should be
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Anyone have success with a particular component or open source
> scheduling project?

The term "scheduling" in the context of computer programs is kind of
vague. Until you mentioned time zone, I was thinking along the lines of
scheduling processes to be executed on the CPU.

Are you basically looking for a shared calendar and some communication
tools? If so, google for "groupware" and you'll find lots of open source
projects.

Otherwise, you might have to be more specific on what kind of
functionality you mean. Many scheduling problems are actually NP-complete
(meaning no reasonable performance [non-quantum] computer algorithms are
known for solving them yet).

- Oliver

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timasmith@hotmail.com - 29 Jun 2006 14:28 GMT

Right, so the application needs a number of different capabilities.
Here are some examples

a) Value object stores start and stop date/time, frequency + times
e.g. Starting tomorrow 8.00am for a week 3 times per day at
10am,2pm and 6pm

Sending a date/time 'Scheduler' determines next scheduled date/time

b) Batch/operations scheduling. User schedules many reports and shell
scripts to be executed throughout the day, some dependent on another,
some weekly, some once etc.

'Scheduler' determines every day when to wake up and execute a
report or script

c) Resouce scheduling. User defines a resource, hours of availability,
capacity and then schedules blocks of times - quite similar to
Microsoft Outlook or other multi user calendar and resource scheduling
programs.

> > There must be many applications with scheduling functionality -
> > schedule processing, schedule resources, etc. Hell there should be
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> - Oliver

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jhr - 28 Jun 2006 23:28 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> Tim

try:
http://www.opensymphony.com/quartz/
I have not personally used it, but have looked at the code. It should
cover more then what you need.

But if you just want some basic functionality it wouldn't be hard to
write something around the java.util.Timer api.

J

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timasmith@hotmail.com - 29 Jun 2006 14:29 GMT

Excellent, I will take a look. Yes, I need much more than basic
functionality.

> > Hi,
> >
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
> J

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design patterns - scheduling

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