Issues in the design of modelling languages for mathematical programming

Modeling languages have become one of the most important tools in helping to make Mathematical Programming technology easier to use. Having proven its usefulness, more attention is now being given to the improvement of the design and implementation of these languages. This paper reviews some of the main issues that arise in the design of modeling languages and which can be applied to any algebraic modeling language to help evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Existing modeling languages are used to illustrate these issues.