noitsjocelyn / sdd-sudoku-teacher Goto Github PK

Optimize the Sudoku generation and puzzle making algorithms.

Do we want to have puzzle generation "fail" and start over if it reaches a given time without success? If so, how long? 30 seconds? 10 seconds? A minute?

This should be fairly straight forward: In PuzzleMakerFactory, set the dispatch_semaphore_wait max time to something other than DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER, and then start over in the failure block.

Play at the end of the hint sequence causes the app to sometimes crash.

If we pre-generate full puzzles at the main menu, they will hopefully be ready to go by the time the user picks a difficulty and starts a game. This should drop the loading time to almost zero, if done correctly.

In tutorial game, hint button crashed

The profiler says that Puzzle's findSquareInChunkWithRequiredValue is leaking 16 bytes per call when called from PuzzleMaker's buildMediumPuzzle.

For example, the puzzle below.

Is there a minimum number of blanks in a puzzle? Should there be?

Since there isn't much room left in the UI on 3.5 inch iPhone screens, I've been thinking about where to put the game timer. My best idea so far is putting it in the title bar. It would say Sudoku briefly, then fade to the time since the user started the puzzle.

I got almost all the way done with the puzzle shown below, and with four squares left, I realized that there are two possible solutions. Both of the sectors need an 8 and a 9, and nothing forces you to pick one way over the other. Is there a way we can guarantee uniqueness?

The PuzzleMaker methods makeEasyPuzzle and makeMediumPuzzle can hit a point of no progress and hang. I added a cutoff where the methods give up after 500 consecutive iterations with no progress. The puzzles that get generated when this threshold is reached are not valid easy or medium puzzles.

The easiest place to see this bug is the unit tests, which often fail on easy, and always fail on medium.

Finished puzzle, pop up with "puzzle completed", pressed okay. Finished board displayed, hit the hint button, and app crashed.