Non-Clairvoyant Scheduling with Progress Bars

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Benomar, Ziyad, Cosson, Romain, Lindermayr, Alexander, Schlöter, Jens
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Benomar, Ziyad
Cosson, Romain
Lindermayr, Alexander
Schlöter, Jens
author_facet Benomar, Ziyad
Cosson, Romain
Lindermayr, Alexander
Schlöter, Jens
contents In non-clairvoyant scheduling, the goal is to minimize the total job completion time without prior knowledge of individual job processing times. This classical online optimization problem has recently gained attention through the framework of learning-augmented algorithms. We introduce a natural setting in which the scheduler receives continuous feedback in the form of progress bars: estimates of the fraction of each job completed over time. We design new algorithms for both adversarial and stochastic progress bars and prove strong competitive bounds. Our results in the adversarial case surprisingly induce improved guarantees for learning-augmented scheduling with job size predictions. We also introduce a general method for combining scheduling algorithms, yielding further insights in scheduling with predictions. Finally, we propose a stochastic model of progress bars as a more optimistic alternative to conventional worst-case models, and present an asymptotically optimal scheduling algorithm in this setting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_19662
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Non-Clairvoyant Scheduling with Progress Bars
Benomar, Ziyad
Cosson, Romain
Lindermayr, Alexander
Schlöter, Jens
Data Structures and Algorithms
In non-clairvoyant scheduling, the goal is to minimize the total job completion time without prior knowledge of individual job processing times. This classical online optimization problem has recently gained attention through the framework of learning-augmented algorithms. We introduce a natural setting in which the scheduler receives continuous feedback in the form of progress bars: estimates of the fraction of each job completed over time. We design new algorithms for both adversarial and stochastic progress bars and prove strong competitive bounds. Our results in the adversarial case surprisingly induce improved guarantees for learning-augmented scheduling with job size predictions. We also introduce a general method for combining scheduling algorithms, yielding further insights in scheduling with predictions. Finally, we propose a stochastic model of progress bars as a more optimistic alternative to conventional worst-case models, and present an asymptotically optimal scheduling algorithm in this setting.
title Non-Clairvoyant Scheduling with Progress Bars
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.19662