The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Luke]

What is it when a DP is embedded in a chain -- as I indicated for Marty's usage? It's no longer a UR, is it?

Danny, I saw the chain you reference with the hidden pair angle, but your point is lost on me. Why look that way, when Marty's original solution fits the very definition of elegance? He showed us the shortest move, using the least information, producing the maximum damage.

If people know and use terms with confidence, then there's no reason not to use them.

That's cool. So, use the UR or AUR term with confidence, as I know we can. My whole point: if someone wasn't up on the concept of URs, I'd rather see them directed to unique rectangles before deadly patterns. "DP" opens the whole can of worms, not just the sweet little UR/AUR that was exploited here.
_________________________________


Advocacy: Then there was the dyslexic devil worshiper. He sold his soul to Santa ...

[Sudtyro2]

Thx to all for the positive and very helpful feedback. The comments, links, and suggestions are most appreciated.

And FWIW...
I gave up on naming conventions when I learned that a Turbot Fish wasn't a fish at all, and that a 2-Fish was called an X-Wing.

Always more to learn...

SteveC

[DonM]

Then to advocate for the dark side, what about this rhetorical statement:

"I don't use the terms W-wing, H2-wing, L3-wing, S4-wing, m5-wing etc etc etc because they mean nothing, except to the people who know and use them. They must be very confusing to a new player or reader. However, they're all just wings, a descriptive, meaningful term to all."

My turn to play devil's advocate?

If people know and use terms with confidence, then there's no reason not to use them. However, if people don't feel confident with a term, then they're going to use something else. A DP pattern of cells and candidates is often the common denominator for many of us remaining in the forum. You are comfortable with more elaborate terms. That doesn't help us.

So, it is being assumed that this is a case of many other solvers vs. Luke? That would be a surprise since Luke is the most experienced solver- especially when it comes to all things BUG, BUG-lite and MUG- taking part in the discussion.

Anyway, I'm dismayed at the entire premise. The use of all the various 'wing' terms used for AICs (except perhaps for W-wing) have little or no practical value in manually discovering an AIC and were never used in the manner they are in this forum in the past either in the old Players' forum or over at Eureka. In the end, the AIC pattern is a series of alternating inferences and the eliminations result from the same logic regardless of the number of strong links, weak links or whether the chain is derived from transport. Yet, AICs are frequently given these fancy descriptions in this forum.

On the other hand, DP (death pattern), is a broad term and under the broad DP umbrellla lie several different patterns that a manual solver has to find: AUR, MUGS, BUGS, BUG-Lite, Broken Wings/Oddagon. At the extremes, finding an AUR-based pattern is quite different from finding an Oddagon. To just refer to them in the solution as DP would be a gross over-simplification. Yet, now these terms are called 'elaborate' and 'this doesn't help us'.

[DonM]

Thx to all for the positive and very helpful feedback. The comments, links, and suggestions are most appreciated.

And FWIW...
I gave up on naming conventions when I learned that a Turbot Fish wasn't a fish at all, and that a 2-Fish was called an X-Wing.

Always more to learn...

SteveC

Steve, I hope will re-think giving up naming conventions. I don't like a lot of the names that were given to patterns when sudoku-solving started in 2005-6 and perhaps some of them could have been simplified at some early point without confusion,. But they weren't, so, the fact is that for the sudoku solver (old or new), there is still a lot information on the internet under these original names.

So, take Turbot Fish: If one were to jettison the name or try to rename it would just unnecessarially further confuse things. There is a lot of renaming (that is IMO very unfortunate) going on here already. I hear things like 'I do it this way and I do it that way' when one would think that people would want to confer and agree on some standards (with some consideration given to not making unnecessary major changes of past-accepted names) so that everyone is talking the same language.

[Sudtyro2]

Steve, I hope will re-think giving up naming conventions...

Don, I fully concur with your observations and don't ever really plan to give up on naming conventions.

So, take Turbot Fish ...

And just for fun, I took a refresher tour through Sudopedia and came up with this partial aka-list for a (possibly grouped) Turbot Fish:

Code: Select all

Alternating Inference Chain (AIC)
Discontinuous Loop
Discontinuous Nice Loop
X-Chain
2-String Kite
Empty Rectangle
Hinge
Skyscraper
Sashimi X-Wing

And the irony is that my posted statement is wrong. The final list entry above means that a Turbot Fish can really be a Fish, after all. Ouch!

SteveC