What's the purpose of “hardLevel” in “addHardConstraintMatch”

Question

For my problem, I'm using the BendableScoreHolder cause I need 3 hard constraints and 2 soft constraints. I'm wondering what's the purpose of the second parameter "hardlevel" of the method addHardConstraintMatch though.

Answer 1

Do you need 3 hard constraints or 3 hard constraints levels? (and similarly reasoning for soft constraints).

If you need 3 hard constraints, you only have 1 hard level. So use HardSoftScore, not BendableScore. Note that the hard constraints might be weighted against each other. For example: 1 teacher confict is 10 times as worse than 1 student confict. So 1 teacher confict is weight -10 and 1 student confict is weight -1.

If you need 3 hard constraint levels, then BendableScore is indeed appropriate. The hardLevel is 1 of those 3 levels. For example: 1 teacher confict is infinity worse than 1 student confict. So 1 teacher confict is level 0 and 1 student confict is level 1.