Director @ Night

Sudoku in Lingo

February 14th, 2006

There is currently a good ongoing discussion on Direct-L mailing list related to the massively popular game called Sudoku. From Wikipedia:

Sudoku, sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a logic-based placement puzzle, also known as Number Place in the United States. The aim of the canonical puzzle is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids (called “regions”), starting with various digits given in some cells (the “givens”). Each row, column, and region must contain only one instance of each numeral.

Several on the list have presented ways to solve and create these puzzles in Lingo. There are already many other solutions (open source, shareware, commercial) that let you do such things (see Wikipedia link).

One thing that might be fun is trying to see who could create the “fastest” code for both creating and solving a puzzle. Anyone up for this challenge? We’d have to set up some rules for this contest of course…something to think about in the near future.

I’ve never been much of a puzzle solver, but thinking about the math/coding behind such things is often fun.

Entry Filed under: Daily thoughts