Learning Sudoku Techniques

pat1il · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:03 am Post subject: Learning Sudoku Techniques

I have put together a web site designed to help people master a wide variety of solver techniques. It includes instructional text and specially designed puzzles and graphical hints to help individuals master Sudoku.

The techinques covered are hidden singles, block and row/column interactions, block and block interactions, naked subsets, hidden subsets, XY Wings, X-Wings, Swordfish, Coloring and Forcing Chains.

I would appreciate feedback on the web site. It is still a work in progress and obviously needs more work. The web site is sudokulearningcenter dot com

Regards
Pat

north55 · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:15 pm Post subject:

Given that you expect to "profit" from the site asking for free advice is icky.

I'll give you some anyway.

Hire an english teacher to fix your very many grammar mistakes, and a few spelling errors.

xy wing. Bad example, rectangular is rare. Bad description...xyz-wing is another method.

Swordfish is wrong. Look it up. 2-2-2 is the minimal.

Needs a "next lesson" link. Hello?

Your placing the "test" beside the lesson is confusing.
Test first is dumb as a stone.

I considered a reply as more than you deserve.

I am hoping I will spare some others from going to whatever dot com.

Edited to correct my grammar error. I am sure that there may be others. English was my worst subject. Sad

pat1il · Last edited by pat1il on Sat Apr 14, 2007 4:53 am; edited 1 time in total

I guess I should thank you for the feedback. Smile

I did not do the site to make money and have no advertisement on the web site. I was looking to fill what I thought was a void for those just learning to play Sudoku. The certificate was put in just as a lark and I would surely stave to death if I was relying on that to make money.

I went with a puzzle along side the lesson in the hopes of making it easier for someone to play with an actual puzzle while still being able to see the lesson text. Maybe that was a bad decision but I am not sure what format would be better.

As to the actual description of the techniques, I agree that more work needs to be done but do not want to make it so complicated that the average individual could not follow. I know that is a fine line. I will also work on correcting the grammar, but that's not my strong suit.

Regards
Pat

north55

pat1il · Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:29 am Post subject: Comments on Swordfish lesson

North55,

I am not sure what point you were making about my Swordfish lesson.

You said that 2-2-2 is the minimal but I am not familiar with that terminology.

I always thought that Swordfish was always described as 3 rows and 3 columns with either the rows or columns containing only two candidates.

Regards
Pat

Ruud · Site Admin

Hi Pat,

It looks like you mainly used the Sadman Software technique descriptions as your source. The gap between Coloring and Forcing Chains is telltale. There is a whole range of interesting solving techniques filling this gap.

The sticky post on top of this forum has links to several good quality solving guides. Sudopedia is pretty complete.

About your site:

Tiny Roman font is hard to read. Better use Verdana or another sans-serif font and make it a little bigger.

Toggle candidates in the player is very slow. Think of ways to improve the speed. For comparison (with the possibility to rip faster code) see my Sudoku Lite Player.

Pattern-based techniques are better illustrated with a digit filter. It would be nice to have such a feature in the player.

Missing solving techniques (a must for certification):

XYZ-Wing, WXYZ-Wing (etc)
Uniqueness tests
Remote Pairs
BUG, MUG, BUG-Lite
ALS
Nice Loops/AIC
Finned Fish
Turbot Fish (with subtypes 2-String kite and Skyscraper)
Grouped Turbot Fish and Grouped Coloring
Aligned Pairs & Triples
Sue-De-Coq

cheers,
Ruud
_________________
Meet me at sudocue.net

pat1il · Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 1:52 pm Post subject: Sudoku Learning Center

Hi Rudd,

Thanks for your comments. They are very helpful.

I know I need to do something to improve on fonts and font sizes. Especially for different size screens.

It's difficult to speed up the cell candidates as you have done because I allow users to double click on values to select them and therefore need separate html elements for each.

On terminology, I did use SadMan's terminology for the solvers and that might not be the best. Is there a generally accepted nominclature for solution techniques?

My solver is built with javascript since since I wanted to be able to give real-time graphical hints if and when someone gets stumped. However, I am limited by how many solvers can be implemented and still maintain reasonable performance. I am sort of at the limit now and probably cannot add the more exotic techniques you suggested.

My feeling is that if someone mastered the techniques in my list, they would be well on the way to mastering Sudoku and could then easily pick up any missing ones.

Regards,

Pat

sudokulearningcenter dot com

pat1il · Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:49 am Post subject: When is enough

I am constantly reading about new techniques that someone has found and programmed. While they may be reasonable techniques for a computer program, it's hard for me to imagine how a person with paper and pencil could reasonably analyze all of these techniques and the miriad of possibilities.

Is there a cutoff where solving with paper and pencil just becomes too difficult, and if this is the case, why not just use the "Dancing Links" algorithm to solve by computer.

Pat
www.sudokulearningcenter.com

pat1il · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject: Thanks for feedback

I have made several changes to the web site based upon feedback.

In addition, I have added approximately 300 new puzzle to the database so you can select a wider range of puzzles to solve.

Regards
Pat
www.sudokulearningcenter.com

daj95376 · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:16 am Post subject:

Requires Registration and a fee is charged to get a certificate.

pat1il · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 5:21 am Post subject: No registration required

The web site does not require registration to use any of the lessons or puzzles on the site. However, if you register (registering does not require a e-mail address or any personal information), your progress will be tracked.

There is a nominal charge to get a certificate upon completion of the course. However it's completely optional and not required.

I just hope some people get some use out of it. It was developed as a hobby project and does not contain any advertisement or links to other sites.

Regards
Pat
www.sudokulearningcenter.com