Telling a kid how software development teams work

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2 Responses to “Telling a kid how software development teams work”

1. Cor van Spaendonck says:

   May 28, 2023 at 3:19 pm

   Looking for a way to make a playlist for radiostation that follows rules.
   Groups of songs from 60s, 70s, 80s and so on are on separate tabs.
   With a random column I can shake them.
   Then combine row1 from all tabs to a group of 15 songs for one hour.
   Also row2, row3 and so on. If i have 100 songs from each decade, I can make 100 hourlong playlists at once. Large part is solved.
   BUT:
   1. problem with length of songs, total of column songlengths should be <60 minutes (too short is less of a problem than too long, one extra commercial or jingle)
   2. would be great to have alternating male-female-male-female singers of songs
   3. not playing two reggae songs within 60 minutes (so not just per hour, but also not last song of previous and first song of new hour) would be great to have this for more categories (heavy metal, power ballads, country).
   4. same as 3: not plaing same artist within 120 miuntes (or other amount, but usually measured in hours or dayparts)
   5. same as 3: not same song (covered by another artist) within 60 or 120 minutes
   (3+4+5 are same problem I guess)
   6. same as 2: alternating slow vs. fast songs, happy vs. sad songs (at least, not two slow or sad songs after each other, so then more or less problem 3+4+5). This seems the problem: order the childrens names in classroom on alphabet, but ALERNATING boys and girls.

   With about 100 songs per category (60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, 20s) I get 100^7 = 100.000.000.000.000 random combo rows. So maybe I should make them all and then filter out the 'wrong' rows, that do not follow the rules? But this feels brute force, and not elegant, like your solutions usually are.
   In special circumstances, it would be great to be able to filter out certain songs from the separate tabs. Like songs about fire, or with dirty words (that can be played at night).
   Every song has artist and title, but can have columns with song length, genre, mood, tempo, special things (like christmas yes/no, not daytime, not drivetime (7.00 to 9:00 too busy for listeners drinving to work).

   I hope it makes some sense, and that you can point me in a direction for solution. This could also be used for staff planning I think. and for all (internet) radio stations in the world. And you can make an interesting playlist with the music on your laptop.

   Thanks in advance for your trouble. I love your site and Excel knowledge and graphics. Even the cartoons for Powerpoint.

   cheers, Cor.

   Reply
   • Chandoo says:

     May 29, 2023 at 5:28 am

     Hi Cor van Spaendonck...

     This is an interesting question (albeit on a completely unrelated and very old post).
     I don't think brute force should be the way to go.
     But generating all such playlists would be a tedious task nevertheless. If possible, I recommend using a programming language (such as VBA or python) to solve the problem as that will give you options to optimize or tweak the logic.
     If you must do this in Excel, here is the general approach I would take:
     1) Start by picking a random song of random gender from sheet 1
     2) pick the next from next sheet such that:
     2.1) it is of a different gender
     2.2) the total length so far would be a multiple of 4 or closer (so we can have 15 songs)
     2.3) and it is random
     3) repeat step 2 until you reach 15 songs

     Repeat the whole thing to generate a new playlist
     Add any filter conditions (like profanity or theme etc.) to make new playlist for another ocassion.

     Reply

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