A technique of operations research for solving certain kinds of problems involving many variables where a best value or set of best values is to be found. It is most likely to be feasible when the quantity to be optimized, sometimes called the objective function, can be stated as a mathematical expression in terms of the various activities within the system, and when this expression is simply proportional to the measure of the activities, i.e., is linear, and when all the restrictions are also linear. It is different from computer programming, although problems using linear programming techniques may be programmed on a computer.