Your recent posting broaches the question of *where next?* for
FreeCell software development.
In the past, I believe the primary emphasis was on testing a broad
range of deals to see which were solvable or not. Fast solvers like
FreeCell Solver and Patsolve were able to provide the answers.
Now, I believe that FreeCell solvers need to change their emphasis and
address the needs of those who are still playing the game.
There are three primary types of players that come to mind: (1) those
who want to see a meaningful solution to a deal that's giving them
trouble, (2) people who are looking for comparably difficult deals to
tackle next, and (3) those who want to know if a solution exists from
their current position.
These people are often less interested in *how fast* a deal can be
solved -- just so long as they don't get impatient while waiting for
results -- than the quality of the results they receive.
FcPro26 addresses the group (3) MS FreeCell players. NetCell addresses
the group (2) non-MS FreeCell players. But, I don't know of any
FreeCell solvers that address the group (1) players!
If someone's looking for a solution to MS deal 11575, I think they'd
prefer to have a reasonably intuitive 64-move solution to examine
instead of a convoluted 169-move solution -- even if they can get the
second solution faster.
It's possible that no one other than myself wants any of what I've
indicated. However, that's the direction I'm taking with my MS
FreeCell solver. Currently, it generates an average of 50.25 moves (64
moves max) for the 32K MS deals and I find playing a solution to often
be informative; i.e, group (1). I'm striving to make its moves
efficient yet *natural* where possible. I'm also working to improve
closing moves without penalizing initial and intermediate moves. I
haven't made much progress towards group (2) except to find deals with
trivial solutions -- of which there are many. My solver isn't
interactive, so it isn't of any help for group (3).
Regards, Danny A Jones
Received on Fri Jan 14 2005 - 12:34:07 IST