denis_berthier wrote:There can't be any fixed order. CSP-Variables come first, then their value, so that you will always have some rn{c... and some cn{r... and some bn{xx.. So, the order rn or nr is irrelevant.
That conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, nor is it true.
As someone else (maybe Red Ed) said of it someday, it is the inventor's prerogative (and he did mean me).
Of course. You're totally free to use whatever notation you like. I only suggested one very simple way that could make it more accessible to Eureka users (and probably most other people too). You don't have to agree or even care.
Each one is a target in turn. (They are never used simultaneously in the chain.)
Sounds really inefficient but that's a feature of typical contradiction eliminations anyway, which is one reason why they're inelegant. I hope your biv-chains don't have the same limitation? If they do, the only reasons for that I could see are a) it's a limitation of SudoRules and you've made a virtue out of necessity, or worse b) you actually treat biv-chains as contradiction chains on the logical level too (which would mean they're not really equivalent to AICs but to the obsolete Discontinuous Nice Loops).
Who is "we" and "ours"?
The regular Eureka+extensions users on this forum. That would be the majority, with maybe 1-2 individuals for each of Nice Loops, implication chains, TDP, your notation, and some individualistic ones. Of course I'm mostly talking about the regular players in the Puzzles section, as it's kind of hard to know what notations others possibly use. The same trend is evident in the historical posts too. Nice Loops with their horrible notation seem to be the standard in the oldest posts until succeeded by AICs and Eureka. There's very little evidence of anything else having had much foothold here, even though your notation pops up every now and then (mostly posted by you).
There was no "memory chains" before I introduced whips, braids and all my menagerie.
Didn't I just suggest that possibility? Like I said, I don't know anything about that history so I can't know if you're right or not. If you are, good for you. All I know is that me, myself, and I would never knowingly take credit for anyone else's ideas, and if I do know the original inventor of some technique (almost impossible in many cases) I will mention it when applicable. You should know that even based on this discussion alone.
That said, I'm not responsible at all if at some point in history some people have picked up some good parts from your system without giving due credit to you, or if such credits were lost in the sands of time. I feel for you, if that's true, but there's nothing I can do about it. I have no way of knowing who invented what, having been on the scene for only three years, and so many of the old discussions having been lost in the crash. It's hardly relevant to my quest of finding the best solving and notation tools anyway.
Some people pretend not to understand them and propose "new" chains" and new names for them or for related concepts as if they had invented anything.
Well, I don't know who those people are, or if they exist, so I really couldn't care less. This discussion is getting less and less interesting.
There is no "our" system. There is just an alternative notation that tries to hide the total absence of new ideas or plagiarism.
Ok. Since it seems to be your primary concern, let's just agree that you've probably invented every useful sudoku technique especially related to chains. Everyone else has just plagiarized you and tried to hide that fact under alternative (and of course totally illegible) notations. It's obviously impossible that different people might have come up with similar ideas independently, even if those ideas seem pretty inevitable extensions to their existing mechanisms (or did you invent AICs too, I forgot to ask?). It's also totally impossible that they might have implemented them with more readable and intuitive notations.
Would that agreement stop this broken record that's probably been playing for years for different audiences? Seems like the simplest solution to me, which goes well with the "simplest first" theme of this thread.
One last thing, though. Even if it's true that the concepts in memory chains were stolen from you, it's pretty irrelevant in the big picture, perhaps even something you shouldn't be too proud of. Most of us try to avoid them as much as possible as they're considered very inelegant. It's actually always possible, but sometimes, though very rarely (and for some people never), a memory chain might seem like the optimal compromise. Thus, fact is that at least the best Eureka writers use almost exclusively techniques and notations that probably have nothing at all to do with your inventions.
For example, I haven't seen anything resembling things like split-nodes or nested chains in your system. With those we can write almost anything as perfectly valid AICs. No ugly contradictions or memories needed at all, thank you very much. (Are they always the shortest or the most readable chains? Probably not, but that's not the point. Is recursion the most understandable and efficient way to program?) As far as I understand, you don't have things like krakens either because you don't accept OR-branching. Many times those provide the most readable solutions compared to any linear chains implementing the same logic. So, if you really want to claim memory chains as your invention, be my guest
I'm not interested at all in talking about notation. It's pure waste of time.
Let's be done with wasting each other's time then. I was genuinely interested in learning your system but I no longer see much point. Thanks anyway, and I mean it. I do appreciate even your minimal willingness to help. I now have a much better idea of your system, and at least I learned what whips are at last (or did I just pretend?).
Steve's comment nailed it: