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emba-course-solver/CHANGELOG.md
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Bill 4b80fac500 v1.3.0: Streamed top-K decision-tree plans + priority-aware ceiling
Fixes the bug where a specialization could show "Achievable" while no
per-set ceiling cell surfaces a path to it. Reproduction: pin SP2=Business
of Health & Medical Care, SP4=Foundations of Fintech, SP5=Corporate Finance,
SE1=GIE; rank HCR first. Healthcare showed Achievable but every ceiling
cell excluded HCR.

Root cause: computeCeiling used strict > on count alone, so the first
equal-count combination found won permanently and HCR-including outcomes
were never recorded.

Changes:

- Replace per-(set, choice) computeCeiling loop with a single full-tree
  searchDecisionTree DFS. Both the per-set ceiling table and a new ranked
  top-K plan list (default K=10) are populated from one enumeration.
- Comparison rule everywhere is (count desc, priority score desc,
  deterministic-tiebreak). priorityScore extracted from optimizer.ts
  into a shared priority.ts module used by both call sites.
- Heuristic enumeration ordering: select the first reachable ranked spec
  as priorityTarget; reorder DFS children at every level so target-
  qualifying courses are tried first. High-priority outcomes surface in
  early iterations instead of being blocked by less-relevant equal-count
  results.
- Bounded search: terminate on saturation (top-K stable for 500
  iterations) or hard cap (10000 iterations); set partial=true if cap
  hit. Mitigates the worst-case enumeration cost.
- Worker protocol: tagged-union response with topKUpdate, choiceUpdate
  (per-cell, replaces per-set setComplete), and allComplete events.
- App state adds topPlans/topPlansPartial slices and an adoptPlan action
  that pins a plan's full course assignment in one click. Also fixes
  loadState's stale "ranking.length !== 14" check (now uses
  SPECIALIZATIONS.length so HCR-era saved state restores correctly).
- New TopPlans component renders the ranked list with adopt buttons,
  placed above CourseSelection in the right column.
- 17 new tests in searchDecisionTree.test.ts covering priority scoring,
  bounded ranked list, comparison rule, target selection, the user's
  reproduction scenario, streaming monotonicity, saturation termination,
  and a performance smoke test (< 5s for the 8-open-set case).
- Existing decisionTree.test.ts: one test amended for per-cell streaming
  semantics; remaining 3 unchanged and passing.
2026-05-09 14:51:32 -04:00

7.0 KiB

Changelog

v1.3.0 — 2026-05-09

Changes

  • Top Plans panel — new ranked list of up to 10 complete course plans, each showing the achieved specializations and the courses to pin. An "Adopt plan" button pins all of a plan's courses in one click. Updates progressively as the search finds better outcomes.
  • Priority-aware decision tree — fixes the bug where a specialization could show "Achievable" without any per-set ceiling cell surfacing it. The decision-tree search now compares enumerated combinations by (count desc, priority score desc) and reorders DFS children so courses qualifying for the user's first reachable ranked spec are tried first, surfacing high-priority outcomes early.
  • Bounded search with saturation termination — search stops when the top-K stabilizes (default 500 stable iterations) or when the iteration cap (10000) is hit; partial results are flagged in the UI.
  • Per-cell streaming — the worker now emits per-cell ceiling updates instead of per-set rollups, so the per-set table refines progressively rather than appearing in coarse chunks.

v1.2.2 — 2026-05-09

Changes

  • Healthcare specialization (HCR) — added 15th specialization, Healthcare; qualifies via The Business of Health & Medical Care (Spring Set 2), Analytics & Machine Learning for Managers (Spring Set 3), Digital Marketing Strategy in Practice (Summer Set 2), and Managing Change (Fall Set 1); 10 total credits available, no required course gate
  • Course rename — "Social Media and Mobile Technology" renamed to "Digital Marketing Strategy in Practice"; description replaced with new MSKCC-anchored content covering digital strategy and agentic AI; instructor cleared pending confirmation
  • Cancellations (Approach B) — switched from delete-and-replace to flagging cancelled courses with cancelled: true. "Customer Insights" (Spring Set 5) is now marked cancelled. "Managing Growing Companies" reappears in Summer Set 2 as a cancelled placeholder per the J27 sheet
  • Reachability testdata.test.ts now excludes cancelled courses when counting per-spec set reachability, so future cancellations are caught by an obvious assertion failure

v1.2.1 — 2026-03-27

Bug Fixes

  • Achievable status accuracy — specializations marked "Achievable" are now verified via LP feasibility check against already-achieved specs; previously, a specialization could show "Achievable" based on raw credit potential while actually being infeasible due to credit sharing with higher-priority achieved specializations

v1.2.0 — 2026-03-27

Changes

  • Course info popovers — each course now has an info icon that opens a popover showing the course description, instructor(s), and specialization tags, extracted from the J27 Electives PDF; opens on hover (desktop) or tap (mobile), with smart positioning that flips above when near the bottom of the viewport
  • Page title and favicon — updated browser tab from "app" with Vite icon to "EMBA Specialization Solver" with a graduation cap favicon in NYU Stern purple
  • Viewport-fitted layout — desktop layout now fits within the viewable area without page-level scrolling; each pane scrolls independently

v1.1.1 — 2026-03-27

Changes

  • Course replacement — replaced cancelled "Managing Growing Companies" with new course "Innovation and Design" in Summer Elective Set 2; qualifies for Brand Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Marketing, and Strategy (S2)

v1.1.0 — 2026-03-13

Changes

  • Cancelled course support — "Managing Growing Companies" (Summer Elective Set 2) is marked as cancelled and rendered with strikethrough, greyed-out styling, and a "(Cancelled)" label; it is excluded from solver computations and decision tree enumeration
  • Duplicate course prevention — courses that appear in multiple elective sets (e.g., "Global Immersion Experience II" in Spring Set 1 and Summer Set 1, "The Financial Services Industry" in Spring Set 2 and Fall Set 4) are now linked; selecting one automatically disables and excludes its duplicate from selection and solver calculations, shown with an "(Already selected)" label
  • Credit bar tick marks — specialization progress bars now display light vertical tick marks at 2.5-credit intervals for visual scale reference, layered above bar fills with the 9.0 threshold marker remaining visually distinct

v1.0.0 — 2026-02-28

Initial release of the EMBA Specialization Solver.

Features

  • Optimization engine — LP-based credit allocation solver with two modes:
    • Maximize Count — finds the largest feasible set of specializations, using ranking as tiebreaker
    • Priority Order — greedily adds specializations in user-ranked order
  • Course selection UI — select one course per elective set across 12 sets (Spring, Summer, Fall terms)
  • Drag-and-drop specialization ranking — reorder the 14 specializations by priority with touch and keyboard support
  • Decision tree analysis — Web Worker enumerates remaining course combinations to compute ceiling outcomes per choice
  • Status tracking — each specialization classified as achieved, achievable, missing required course, or unreachable
  • Mode comparison — displays what the alternative optimization mode would produce
  • Credit bars and allocation breakdowns — visual progress toward the 9-credit threshold with expandable per-course detail
  • Credit legend — collapsible explainer for bars, badges, and limits
  • Required course labels — courses that are prerequisites for a specialization show "Required for ..." labels
  • Algorithm explanations — clear descriptions of how each optimization mode works
  • Skeleton loading — placeholder UI while decision tree analysis runs
  • Auto-expand achieved specializations — achieved specs show their credit breakdown by default
  • Responsive layout — two-panel grid on desktop/tablet, single-column on mobile
  • Mobile floating banners — top banner summarizes specialization statuses, bottom banner shows selection progress (N/12); both appear via IntersectionObserver and scroll to their sections on tap
  • CSS transitions and animations — cross-fade course pin/unpin, credit bar width changes, status badge color transitions, expand/collapse panels, mode toggle switching, flash on status changes; all respect prefers-reduced-motion
  • State persistence — rankings and selections saved to localStorage
  • Docker deployment — multi-stage Dockerfile (Node 22 build → Nginx Alpine serve) with Docker Compose, gzip compression, SPA fallback routing, immutable cache headers for hashed assets, configurable port (default 8080)
  • Full test suite — data integrity, feasibility solver, optimizer, and decision tree tests via Vitest

Constraints Modeled

  • Credit non-duplication (2.5 credits per course shared across specializations)
  • Maximum 3 specializations (30 total credits, 9 required each)
  • Required course prerequisites for 4 specializations
  • Strategy S1/S2 tier system (at most 1 S2 course contributes to Strategy)
  • Mutual exclusion from same-set conflicts