SteveG48 wrote:daj95376 wrote:My point is that I'm a terrible manual solver; and, if I decide to look for something that my solver doesn't handle, then it's never easy for me to find an elimination manually through other techniques. I'm always "guessing" at which technique might be present, and it's always a "brute force" effort to search for a pattern present for a technique. I'd much rather review/analyze how my solver was able to resolve a puzzle/PM. I also like to review interesting (non-convoluted) solutions found by others.
Got it. Thanks. Out of curiosity, is your solver something that you've written yourself, or a product started by someone else that you build on?
Unlike DonM, I've accepted that a majority of hard-line purist on form and technique have "left the building". What's left is adjusting to solutions as they are presented.
Maybe that's a good thing (?). Purity is nice, but it doesn't give us innovation.
Don't be misled by the premise that
'hard-line purists on form and technique' somehow limited innovation or that those who strived for good form and technique were 'hard-line' purists in the first place. I'm not sure how long you have been following Sudoku on the forum(s), but in case it is only recently, here are some facts:
This forum, the Players', in its original form provided perhaps the greatest contribution to the foundation for many of the basic and some advanced solving technique still used today. But it was over at the UK Eureka forum that some of the most active and innovative manual-solving occurred between 2007 and 2010. Some of the best manual solvers, Steve K, TTT, Myth Jellies and our still-present David P Bird were often found there.
Around 2010, a major hacking of the Eureka forum wiped out almost all the precious information that solvers were formerly able to refer to so as not to be re-inventing the wheel as has to some extent been going on in this forum. Partly due to that loss of threads started by Steve K, TTT and others and probably also due to other reasons, these major contributors left for good around that time.
However, some remnants of the forum were resurrected and a reliable number of excellent solvers remained in the Eureka forum where puzzles called The Extremes were solved weekly. These puzzles were more difficult than those usually found in this forum and some very useful and interesting manual-solving innovation continued. However, another major hacking occurred and wiped out the entire Eurkea forum and it was gone for good including every last one of threads that had helped solvers learn more advanced techniques.
Now to my main point: Rather than this being a case of 'hard-line' purists squelching innovation by insisting on good form and technique, it was the very fact that those/we solvers co-operated in using good form and technique and in using reasonably consistent notation that innovation could occur. (No, we didn't agree on every little thing, but we did agree on the most important things.)
One other unrelated factotum, but something I might as well get off my chest: Nothing will squelch one's incentive to manually solve sudoku puzzles more than the use of a computer solver. If one makes the mistake of using a solver such as HoDoKu to solve puzzles in these threads, one will never evolve as a manual solver. Some related good news is that if one challenges oneself with more advanced puzzles, most if not all computer solvers still can't match the elegance of a humanly-derived solution.
_