ANN: Sudoku Assistant

[Dan Shafer]

Alex....

Cool!

I downloaded a shareware product called MacSodoku and entered your  
Puzzle #1 into it and solved it in less than five minutes. It was  
great fun and very satisfying. But I think your program could be very  
valuable as a sort of training-wheels approach to learning to think  
in patterns that solve these delightful puzzles.

I'll download your new version and give it a shot today.

Dan

On Aug 1, 2005, at 5:58 AM, Alex Tweedly wrote:

> Dan Shafer wrote:
>
>
>> I'm doing something wrong or misunderstanding how the assistant  
>> works  or something.
>>
>> On Puzzle #1, I got to the place where I have five uncompleted  
>> cells.  One of them has a "?" which I think means there's an error  
>> somewhere.  But neither it nor the cell underneath it show any  
>> potential values  when I click on them. Then I click on an  
>> adjoining square to the one  without a "?" and select a value.  
>> Odds go to 0, so I know I've got a  wrong value there. I "Undo"  
>> and now I have three squares -- the two  original and the one I  
>> just undid -- that show no values to pick from  when I click on  
>> them. SO essentially, even though I think I could  solve the  
>> puzzle at this point, the assistant won't let me proceed.
>>
>> Bug? Something I'm not grokking?
>>
>
> One bug, one not-yet-implemented feature and maybe something you  
> weren't fully grokking. (And for all I know, more bugs still to  
> come ....)
>
> The bug I found and fixed was in undo-ing after there were squares  
> for which no value remained possible. Although they showed on- 
> screen as a "?", the "?" wasn't being saved in the Undo/Redo state,  
> so subsequent "Undo"s could leave blank squares.
>
> I'm not sure how that led to the problem you described to me - so  
> I've also added an automatic logging facility. All actions are  
> logged (to a custom property), and there is a new menu item -  
> File / Save Log File ...   which will save the log file. So if  
> anyone encounters strange situation, they can simply save the log  
> file and email it to me.
>
> The not-yet-implemented feature is that it ought to stop you  
> assigning values to any more squares once any square has no  
> remaining possible values.  I will add that - but in the mean time,  
> keep an eye on the number of possibilities, and if it reaches 0  
> then you will need to Undo (one or more times), so you may as well  
> do it immediately.  (I figure if you had fully grokked things, you  
> wouldn't have continued ....)
>
> Ver 1.3 has been uploaded to RevOnline, with these two changes.
>
> Ver 1.4 will come later today, with an additional feature of  
> showing a detailed breakdown of a single step (i.e. which squares  
> change and why), which will be a useful way to see what the  
> Assistant is doing for you (and indirectly to check that it does  
> the right thing).  That info is actually already gathered in the  
> log file, but I'm looking for a graphical way to show it.
>
> And this is actually being much more interesting than I had  
> expected - so there may well be a Version 2 that eliminates some of  
> the cruft that has sprung up in the various  Ver 1.x's as it has  
> grown organically.
>
> -- 
> Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net
>
>
>
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