Message #3958

From: Luna Peña <scarecrowfish@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: Cooperative Solving of Large Puzzles
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:56:07 +0000

For me it’s less that a group might get listed as first, because they’d
deserve it, but it’s just that someone might be solving it all alone, and
then suddenly they’re beaten to it by a team all working together, you
know? But it’s not that important really.

I’d be up for joining in with a solve, depending on the time. (Although I
can’t run Andrey’s puzzles right now 🙃)

~Luna

On 15 Jan 2018 17:53, "Roice Nelson roice3@gmail.com [4D_Cubing]" <
4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> I personally have no issue with multiple individuals getting listed
> together as the first solve. It’s kind of like the "Polymath
> <https://polymathprojects.org/>" projects, which are collaborative math
> efforts where all participants get listed as authors on resulting papers.
> It may be that no individual will ever be masochistic enough to tame the
> cell-turning 600-cell their own, whereas I could see a polypuzzle effort
> making such solves a possibility.
>
> I like what Nan laid out in terms of mechanisms because it doesn’t require
> new software development. It’s interesting that it does require making the
> solve abelian, that is the macros used will need to commute. I think this
> may mean the solution will be solving the commutator subgroup
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commutator_subgroup> of the full puzzle
> group.
>
> The biggest immediate hurdle seems like it’d be garnering enough interest
> and getting a solution group going, and finding a leader to keep things
> moving.
>
> Best,
> Roice
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 8:26 PM, Luna Peña scarecrowfish@gmail.com
> [4D_Cubing] <4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> This reminds me of FMC strategies, with commutator insertions and that
>> sort of stuff. I think it would totally be possible. I don’t know how I’d
>> feel about it counting as the first solve, but so long as the first person
>> to do it alone got recognition, that seems reasonable.
>>
>> ~Luna
>>
>> On 15 Jan 2018 02:21, "mananself@gmail.com [4D_Cubing]" <
>> 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The first puzzle that comes into my mind is the full cell-turning 600
>>> cell. Andrey included it in MPUlt in 2011.
>>> https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/4D_Cubing/conversations/topics/1745
>>>
>>> It has 259800 stickers. Later on, Andrey created a simplified version,
>>> keeping only about 2000 stickers. In today’s MPUlt, the "600-cell puzzle"
>>> is only the simplified one. But one should still be able to create a config
>>> to run the full version.
>>>
>>> I don’t think anyone has attempted the full 600-cell.
>>>
>>> I think the cooperative solving idea is possible. Many people can work
>>> on isolated areas. For example people can divide piece types, and use
>>> macros that only affect their own types.
>>>
>>> To track progress, we can have the solution and macro definition files
>>> in a git repo, assuming macro move takes one line in such files. One
>>> can branch from master, work on their piece types, send pull requests and
>>> carefully merge back to master. There should only be line insertions in the
>>> merge but no modification.
>>>
>>> We may also have some scripts to track the percentage of solved pieces
>>> in each type, to guard us from making bad merges. In any case, we can
>>> always go back to an old commit. I used such scripts to track some of my
>>> big solves, but working alone, I never have to create branches.
>>>
>>> Does this approach sound reasonable?
>>>
>>> Nan
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>