Message #1654

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Hi everyone, I’m back!
Date: Tue, 03 May 2011 21:43:59 -0700

On 5/3/2011 5:53 PM, David Smith wrote:
>
>
> […]
>
>
> Before, I didn’t actually realize that the very low number of twists,
> compared to
> the number needed to randomize the puzzle, had a noticeable impact on
> the puzzle
> solving, but now I’m hearing that it does.
>

I’m not saying that it does, but for some cases I can imagine that it would.

> And wouldn’t it be wonderful to have
> a truly scrambled puzzle? I’m truly happy that you love the idea of
> generating
> completely scrambled puzzles. I’ve been thinking about it, and I
> believe we can
> make it work, possibly even for the create your own puzzle option! In
> my earlier
> post, I was mostly concerned with you as the programmers, having to
> modify your
> code too much. But if you willing to do so for such a huge benefit, I
> can try
> and make it work. It would be a great contribution! When finding my
> formulas,
> the hard part nowadays is in counting the number of pieces of every
> family. The
> easy part is actually finding the restrictions, and I may be able to
> do so for any
> puzzle given the Schlafli symbol. As I mentioned in my previous post
> about the
> corner algorithm, I have a systematic method for determining
> permutation and
> orientation restrictions of any puzzle very quickly and easily. I’ll
> write up the
> complete algorithm is pseudocode, once I finish, and then we’ll see if
> you think
> it’s worth implementing.
>

I just want to be clear here that although I really like your idea of a
truly general Schlafli-based method of scrambling by reassembly, I will
also be very happy with simply a smarter replacement for my simplistic
code I included earlier. Each method addresses a related but different
problem.

Also, I may not be ready for a big coding exercise on this right away
even if you do come up with the pseudo-code. That also sounds more
within Roice’s sphere, but I don’t want to pressure him to do anything
either. The good news is that we have exactly the right place to record
these sorts of coding possibilities, which is in the issue tracker. You
can simply create a new issue and drop your pseudo-code in there for
someone to pick up when they feel inspired.

I also want to be even more clear that I don’t consider you to be on any
hook at all. I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. You won’t be letting
anyone down even if you do nothing on this. It just seems like a fun
task for you which could lead to some nice additions to the code.

-Melinda