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Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

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Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#61

Post by teejae »

thom wrote: post #55

Bit of a blast from the past for me, as we used Perfect Table Plan when we got married. I heard about that from its creator Andy Brice who frequented the Joel on Software forums, a spiritual precursor to HN. https://www.perfecttableplan.com/ Anyway, we used it to get _most_ of the way there, but ultimately reverted to hand crafting stuff at the end. For us there were many constraints that were vague feelings, only co…

Good points! I looked at Perfect Table Plan, and it seemed perhaps a bit "too complex" at the moment.

I agree that it takes some iteration, and that's why the UI is meant to help tweaking, and testing new ideas. You can lock people in place and keep tweaking, and go back in your work.

Btw, how many people attended your wedding when you used Perfect Table Plan?

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#63

Post by wayfinder »

If anyone wants to build this by themselves, I recommend using an optimization solver library like OptaPlanner. It basically implements standard optimization algorithms you can read in academic papers (which are interesting to read!) so you don’t have to.

You can probably write a basic planner in under an hour with all the constraints you can think of. You can just continue to fiddle with the constraints and weights until you are happy without having to worry about duplicates or errors.

I’ve used it to solve cost optimization problems for companies I’ve worked with and it works really well.

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#64

Post by atoav »

verelo wrote: post #42

My wife and i just went through this for our wedding. A few remarks from that experience that might be helpful: 1. Versions matter - she'd often make a draft and want to tell me "ok tell me if you like this better than the previous version". Id just compare the cells above to the cells below. 2. We organized people based on common interests - these people are very into music, these are very into home renovations, the…

As someone who organized very popular parties back in my teenage years: Whatever you optimize for, don't overdo it. Good social events are all about the right mixture between familar/safe and the unknown/dangerous. Match people too closely and you will bore people, I am not saying you should seat people randomly, but also consider which interests might add to each other.

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#65

Post by vekker »

Pitching in as yet another dev who also thought of implementing this :)

There were just too many constraints for it to be feasible as a web app in our case. Examples of some of those constraints that make it difficult:

* different table sizes, each with a min. and max. seats

* every table has a "head of table", which has to face the bridal couple

* we preferred couples/genders were mixed at every table, not sitting next to each other

* people who must/should/definitely shouldn't sit at the same table

* distances between people mattered: certain groups should be closer/further away from each other

* distances to the main table mattered

* the exact location of the table mattered (for example, older people should have more room/closer to the toilet/away from the dance floor)

It might seem like overengineering to some :) But in the end, it didn't take us too much time to make the layout: we just printed out all the names, and laid them out physically. Then we used that physical layout at the entrance to show people where they are seated. Most of the work was actually cutting out the names, finding them in the pile, physically placing them, ... So I guess if someone just made a beautiful drag-and-drop UI and let the user do the optimization work, and ignore implementing all the "smart stuff", that would work for many people. I guess you could even monetize it by allowing people to print out the layouts in a beautiful way (engraved in wood or whatever) and have it shipped.

(edit: damn it's annoying that HN doesn't support fully markdown for bullet point lists)

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#66

Post by jmalmen »

Super cool! Built something similar a few years back to assign kids to boats on a sailing camp using Google's OR Tools. Don't recommend OR Tools, solver was super slow vs cplex but didn't find any good OS solver. I used two objectives in my objective function to ensure someone didn't get left out, probably need to do something similar for the prioritization in the roadmap?

https://github.com/jonasmalm/lakritsrot

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#67

Post by teejae »

jmalmen wrote: post #66

Super cool! Built something similar a few years back to assign kids to boats on a sailing camp using Google's OR Tools. Don't recommend OR Tools, solver was super slow vs cplex but didn't find any good OS solver. I used two objectives in my objective function to ensure someone didn't get left out, probably need to do something similar for the prioritization in the roadmap? https://github.com/jonasmalm/lakritsrot

Yea, I went with Optaplanner, which is definitely more "user friendly".

Prioritization of parties is on the roadmap, related to table ranking. Were you thinking of prioritization in a different manner?

How were you thinking about "someone getting left out"?

Thanks for the thoughts!

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#68

Post by teejae »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #58

Ok. This may be slightly off-topic, but I'm pretty serious when I suggest getting feedback and ideas from an Indian aunty/uncle who has done and helped arrange or take primary roles in weddings in their families. Here in India, for all significant events, there is always an aunt/uncle who knows everything, and everyone asks that person. Looking at the website and seeing Tables numbered less than ten by default, I rea…

Yea, I would love to hear from one of those aunty/uncles! But I don't know any offhand. You have any pointers?

Thanks for giving the tool a try!

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#69

Post by teejae »

atoav wrote: post #64
verelo wrote: post #42

My wife and i just went through this for our wedding. A few remarks from that experience that might be helpful: 1. Versions matter - she'd often make a draft and want to tell me "ok tell me if you like this better than the previous version". Id just compare the cells above to the cells below. 2. We organized people based on common interests - these people are very into music, these are very into home renovations, the…

As someone who organized very popular parties back in my teenage years: Whatever you optimize for, don't overdo it. Good social events are all about the right mixture between familar/safe and the unknown/dangerous. Match people too closely and you will bore people, I am not saying you should seat people randomly, but also consider which interests might add to each other.

I agree that having serendipity adds to the mix. This tool is more an iterative tool, meant to help guide the decisions, rather than being prescriptive.

Re: Show HN: Better Seater – Wedding seating chart optimizer

#70

Post by hermitcrab »

thom wrote: post #55

Bit of a blast from the past for me, as we used Perfect Table Plan when we got married. I heard about that from its creator Andy Brice who frequented the Joel on Software forums, a spiritual precursor to HN. https://www.perfecttableplan.com/ Anyway, we used it to get _most_ of the way there, but ultimately reverted to hand crafting stuff at the end. For us there were many constraints that were vague feelings, only co…

PerfectTablePlan is still going strong. Currently in v6 and v7 in development.
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