3x3 or 9x9?

rubylips · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 12:07 am Post subject: 3x3 or 9x9?

I prefer the notation 3x3 to 9x9. Consider a Sudoku grid of 12 cells by 12. Depending upon the positions of the boundaries, we could have boxes sized 2x6, 3x4, 4x3 or 6x2. The advantage of the 3x3-style notation is that it tells us which straight away. The overall grid size is given immediately by the product of the two numbers.

I use Boxes Across x Boxes Down, though other might prefer to switch the order of the dimensions - please offer your opinion. With a puzzle of dimensions Boxes Across x Boxes Down, each box has Boxes Across rows and Boxes Down columns, so conventional matrix notation would describe the size of the box as Boxes Across x Boxes Down, i.e. my preferred notation describes the size of the individual boxes within the puzzle.