Hello Freecell Enthusiasts,
I've been reading the latest discussion, and could inject a few
comments.
To Kelvin McNulty:
Thank you for your kind words. "....you could get it included in Linux
distributions..." Shlomi's the expert on that. Would be OK with me.
For Danny Jones:
<<....here I thought Adrian Ettlinger was through with FreeCell.....>>
That was in reference to the expansion of standard notation for >4
freecells. And the skipping of "i" and "j". As I recall, I did in fact do
it that way because "i" and "j" are too easily confusing with "1". At least
to my eyes, at times. And it didn't take any more coding, since "h" had to
be bypassed anyway. True I'm "trying" to be "through with FreeCell", and
would really like to see someone else pick up the code and take over
maintenance -- but no volunteer has appeared up to now. It seems everyone
wants to do their own thing. But I might be dipping one toe in the water re
Freecell again soon. I have a 12-year old grandson who's agitating for me
to teach him how to play. Wondering if I should break him in on M/S or
FcPro.
And re the issue of impending vs. immediate failure. "Impending
failure" is equivalent to calculating a "verdict" as to whether a position
is solvable or unsolvable. And doing that to the desired degree of
effectiveness is truly a tough proposition. Every solver anyone has written
has proven to have had some degree of unreliability as far as ability to
quickly give a verdict on any position. Solvers ideally should include some
sort of time-out, so if it can't deliver a verdict within a given time or
number of iterations, it says something other than "Winnable" or
"Impossible". My preferred term (originated by Don Woods) is "Intractable".
Best regards to all, and keep on Freecelling (The greatest logic puzzle
ever invented). -------------------Adrian
Received on Thu Nov 20 2003 - 15:41:49 IST