What is the difference between constraint satisfaction and optimization?
The difference between constraint satisfaction and optimization depends entirely on how the question is worded. For example a question like “name one way you can make change for a dollar using quarters, dimes, and nickels” is an example of a constraint satisfaction problem. Similarly, “name all the ways you can make change for a dollar using quarters, dimes, and nickels” is a CSP. On the other hand, if the problem was to “name the way you can make change for a dollar using quarters, dimes, and nickels that maximizes the number of quarters”, you would have an optimization problem – the goal (maximizing or minimizing some criteria) makes a CSP a CSOP (Constraints Satisfaction Optimization Problem).
