When I realized I wasn't coding at all. I'm just playing sudoku all along.

Me: Hey, do you play ku?
Friend: Ku?
Me: sudo ku?
Friend: :-|

The exact moment when I understood what programming actually was.

I was getting hard times at my 3rd college grade, trying to implement the recursive sudoku solver in python. Teacher spent a lot of time trying to explain me things like referential transparency, recursion and returning the new value instead of modifying the old one and everything related. I just couldn't get it.

I was one of the least productive students, i couldn't even understand merge sort.

I was struggling with for loops and indexes, and then suddenly something clicked in my head, like someone flipped a switch, and i understood everything i was explained, all at once. It was like enlightenment, like pure magic.

I had sudoku solver implemented by the end of the lecture. Linked list, hash map, sets, social graphs, i got all of these implemented later, it wasn't a problem anymore. I later got an A for my diploma.

Thank you @dementiy, you were the reason for my career to blast off.

CLI geeks, this is what happens when you are too tired on Fridays

Shalom my dudes!
A quick GT from my college years:

>be me
>barely knew how to program but eager to learn more and more
>end of first semester, teacher assigns a couple of classic games for extra points
>battleship, pacman, sudoku, tetris, etc. All done in C
>end up with tetris
>2 days later I have the final build, including all the tech shit like walljump
>start thinking to myself "this looks really fucking ugly, what's wrong with me??"
>look up graphic libraries for C when a light flashes on my computer screen
>*NCURSES*
>the next 2 weeks were a montage of me learning linux, understanding ncurses and redoing my code (plus bug fixing)
>presentation day
>palms are spaghetti
>knees? Spaghetti
>arms? Spaghetti
>class is impressed with my work
>professor comes up to the board and tells me that I get a 0 because it wasn't "pure C"
>clenched my jaw and walked towards the dean office
>"hey, mind if I show you something?"
>open my laptop and show him the game
>he's having a blast since every time you do a 5 row crunch (a tetris), a piece of clothing of a random model comes off
>explain to him what happened in the classroom
>he looks at my code, runs it on a plagiarism checker and tells me that he will edit the grade himself
> a week later there's a 10 on my grading area
>feelsgoodman

When i lost in a competition with a super project against a person that did something that would take 5h of coding.

I codod a compiler, he made a sudoku solver

I tried to do a sudoku solver, but it didn't work...

I wanted it to succeed without backtracking or bruteforce, so I tried solving it in a human way.

I ended up with some if-else AI that couldn't do anything at all

I swear to god I am this close to writing myself a Sudoku solver for those damn Mass Effect Andromeda Puzzles

Not really a rant.

When you start learning a new prog paradigm focused on a particular branch of math and then see it being used to solve a sudoku puzzle in 3 lines of code. Well, that shit changes you and makes you wonder how much shit in the field we don't focus in for being too concerned with everythingPython and everythingNode

Brain is mush but I am loving this shit.

Found my old code.

You gotta admit, that's some clean code there, considering I learned C# only for a year at that time.

But those comments....
VeRy WeLl WrItTeN, vErY dEtAiLeD, vErY gOoD

I just realized.. The way I play Sudoku (I use autofill) ~= why I program and write utility libraries

Skip the boring stuff and get to the actual problem

Add a web frontend to a sudoku solver

Company top execs: "We need to optimize our costs and reduce our expenditure by x€ to keep the profit margin at acceptable levels for the shareholders"

YOU ARE PUSHING OUT SHIT PRODUCTS DAY IN AND DAY OUT THAT YOU FUCKING SUITS THINK WILL BE THE NEXT BIG THING BUT NOONE REALLY WANTS OR NEEDS. WE ALREADY HAVE A TON OF THOSE BORN-DEAD SHITCAKES HANGING AROUND ABD NEW ONES ARE ALREADY BEING PREPARED FOR LAUNCH.

"OPTIMIZE COSTS"? HOW ABOUT YOU STOP PRODUCING SHIT AND STICK TO YOUR FUCKING CORE BUSINESS MODEL!!!

"OPTIMIZE COSTS"? WE HAVE A ZERG OF OLD FUCKS, WHO ARE STILL WAITING FOR THE FUCKING SMS TO START THE NEXT TECH REVOLUTION, ON OUR PAYROLL. ALL THEY FUCKING DO IS PLAY SUDOKU IN THE KITCHEN AND DISCUSS TECHNIQUES ON HOW TO RAISE GOATS!!!

"NO MONEY TO GIVE A PAYRISE TO DEVELOPERS"? WHY DONT YOU JUST FUCKING GET RID OF THE USELESS DUDES BASICALLY DOING THEIR TENURE AND CLOSE SOME OF THESE FUCKTARDED PRODUCTS THAT 4 PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF THE FUCKING COMPANY USE BUT NEED A TEAM OF FUCKING 20 TO MAINTAIN! NO!!! THEY WILL NOT BE THE NEXT BIG THING! NO!!! ANYTHING YOU SHITCAKES WHO THINK MOBILE APPS IS THE "NEW EMERGING MARKET" WILL EVER CREATE THE NEXT FUCKING BIG THING!!!!!

STICK TO YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS AND STOP CREATING USELESS SHIT THATS MAADE BY FUCKING USELESS PEOPLE!!!!

FUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!

Who can solve this sudoku?

Source: xkcd 74

Still on the primenumbers bender.
Had this idea that if there were subtle correlations between a sufficiently large set of identities and the digits of a prime number, the best way to find it would be to automate the search.

And thats just what I did.

I started with trace matrices.
I actually didn't expect much of it. I was hoping I'd at least get lucky with a few chance coincidences.

My first tests failed miserably. Eight percent here, 10% there. "I might as well just pick a number out of a hat!" I thought.

I scaled it way back and asked if it was possible to predict *just* the first digit of either of the prime factors.

That also failed. Prediction rates were low still. Like 0.08-0.15.

So I automated *that*.

After a couple days of on-and-off again semi-automated searching I stumbled on it.

[1144, 827, 326, 1184, -1, -1, -1, -1]

That little sequence is a series of identities representing different values derived from a randomly generated product.

Each slots into a trace matrice. The results of which predict the first digit of one of our factors, with a 83.2% accuracy even after 10k runs, and rising higher with the number of trials.

It's not much, but I was kind of proud of it.

I'm pushing for finding 90%+ now.

Some improvements include using a different sort of operation to generate results. Or logging all results and finding the digit within each result thats *most* likely to predict our targets, across all results. (right now I just take the digit in the ones column, which works but is an arbitrary decision on my part).

Theres also the fact that it's trivial to correctly guess the digit 25% of the time, simply by guessing 1, 3, 7, or 9, because all primes, except for 2, end in one of these four.

I have also yet to find a trace with a specific bias for predicting either the smaller of two unique factors *or* the larger. But I haven't really looked for one either.

I still need to write a generate that takes specific traces, and lets me mutate some of the values, to push them towards certain 'fitness' levels.
This would be useful not just for very high predictions, but to find traces with very *low* predictions.

Why? Because it would actually allow for the *elimination* of possible digits, much like sudoku, from a given place value in a predicted factor.

I don't know if any of this will even end up working past the first digit. But splitting the odds, between the two unique factors of a prime product, and getting 40+% chance of guessing correctly, isn't too bad I think for a total amateur.

Far cry from a couple years ago claiming I broke prime factorization. People still haven't forgiven me for that, lol.

coolest project i did was a sudoku solver.

I'm having a cold and going through Kleenexes faster than a porn addict with Duracell stamina.

So, the question is what therapy exercise to engage in, that fits a brain that's semi dysfunctional due to fever. Last time, I made a Sudoku solver. This turned out to be very useful, because every time someone says "You should try Sudoku!", I can just end the persuasion attempt by replying "I've already solved the general case".

Might do a Rubik's cube solver this time.

What's you do in your free time ?
Me:Hmm Sudoku,rubik-cube,writing code & solving bugs 😰

!dev

ISP: "We are going to give you this piece of garbage Puma6 modem that will cause your internet to randomly die because we want to save a few bucks instead of actually having it function properly"
Me: "Can I replace it with my own?"
ISP: "No?"

I love not having fibre.
So either I shoot myself in the foot by going to another ISP (meaning I'll get *at best* 1/5th of the speed, while my current speed already is a severe bottleneck) or I have to keep content with this fucking piece of garbage internet that decides to commit sudoku over nothing...

closedAt: 1; DROP TABLE `users`; --

I created fully working sudoku in excel...
And then I really wanted to know to create websites.

The feeling in the moments when I got things to work made want to be dev...

Last year I wrote a sudoku program which did solve easy sudokus but messed up on harder ones. I had got bored after a bit and forgot about it until today I thought I'd rewrite it using new stuff I've learned since and make it work properly.

So I opened it up and look and I'm like 'WHAT!?' because I don't understand what I wrote. After a bit I start to get the idea and see that it was kind of smart even if long and complicated.

If anything, it shows how much my documentation skills have improved.

Now I just have to work out how to redo it in a way I understand.

I spent 4 hours to find I have written break instead of continue

I tried to make a Sudoku solver (using human techniques), and then I found it was NP-complete

I forgot the fricking ON clause for a important database query. While it didn't crash MY program or greatly effect the performance, I feel sorry for the API that had to deal with the idiotic results of this.

Especially that one request I just spotted, where I just got the answer "the query took too long". That one was like querying the table "females" for males.

Soo fricking sorry 😭😭😭

If you’re a developer who seek professional growth, there is no better way than learning other languages, even if nobody really uses them.

Pick a language and spend a weekend reading tutorials and most importantly writing code in it, something like game of life, sudoku solver or todo-list app.

The more alien the language feels the better. Try Clojure, OCaml, Smalltalk, Prolog, Erlang, and also weird esoteric languages like Piet.

Writing code that operates on alien concepts you see there is the quickest way of learning that concepts and reusing them in whatever language you’re making money with. Your professional growth will be immense.

If anyone know open source sudoku game made in c that works in console. PLEASE let me know.

I don't understand how people use Windows for development! And then they get GitBash and WSL and those terminals that let you use Linux commands and what not, like why not just get gnu/Linux or macOS?

How do you solve this... without writing a brute force solver

2AM is the best time to play some Sudoku... My brain must really want to goto sleep now...

A sudden click inside my head when I was at the uni trying to implement sudoku. I understood everything I was taught all three years prior, implemented everything I could think of and finished uni with an A for diploma

In my early programming days when i had just started learning, I challenged myself to write a sudoku puzzle solver. Wrote a really naive backtracking solution, but i was really excited to have finished it.

Do you know what happens when you make sudoku game and you type in the code break instead of continue....

YOU DONT WANNA KNOW

Never underestimate the power of a misplaced static in your Java to totally fuck you over.

I was busy with my computer science project for the semester where we have to implement a Sudoku solver without backtracking by using graph theory.

So there I was writing my data structure for the grid when for some reason all the cells were initialized with the value 8.

After a whole night of debugging I was about to start over when I realized I had made my array static.

And boom, it works. WTF!!!!!!!

I never take breaks at work unless it’s lunchtime - this of course has led to some health problems, so now I try taking more breaks.

But when I’m having a tough time at work I try to notify my colleagues and I usually take breaks more often. Some of which include going for a walk outside, catching some fresh air.

And when commuting home I drink some beer on the train and play sudoku or a binary puzzle while listening to podcasts, or I just take out my Switch and play.

I needed to create a c# wrapper class for an activex element which has functions for sudoku.

Then create a wpf interface to play it.
So far so good. Ive had c# wpf, so no problem.

Finished that

"Make another interface in asp.net mvc"

I thought to myself, sure how difficult can asp.net be?

Very difficult apparently.

At least, if you want to make a grid which you can change per cell with an x and y.

I just went to bed after i gave up, when I suddenly got an idea. It ain't pretty, but just might work

When you complain to a teacher about the lack of challenge in another class and he tells you he's gonna make you build a sudoku solver.

I'm getting quite bored from doing the mini c++ assignments and was talking about it to another teacher when he explained he'd got a background in AI and algos so he told me he'd teach me some more interesting stuff :D

Although it was simple
My coolest project I made was a 2 game java app(minesweeper, tic-tac-toe) it was for the java class last year
But now I am working on a sudoku game project for the artificial intelligence class and I am having hard time with it since I am obliged to use game editor to make it, since game editor doesn't help in debugging 😭😭😭😭😭

Incoming rant.

I have 4 years professional experience at a small shop working on a web application for property and liability insurance. The application is ASP.NET with C# as the code-behind. I have a BCS and will finish my MSIS fall 2017. I have no idea why I have the degrees. I know that when I enrolled, it seemed like they would be a nice addition to an otherwise empty resume. I was lucky enough to land my first and only development job during my sophomore year of my undergraduate program. Is this enough experience to land a new job?

I feel like I'm learning nothing at my current job. The specs that come in seem very vague to me. When asked for clarification, there is often push back, and I don't know whether that's because I don't have enough experience to parse what the client means in the two sentence spec I got or if it's because the client does not actually know what they want.

I hate my current job. My productivity is low because I spend more time trying to figure out what the client wants and analyzing an 8 year old system that has 0 documentation. I know some of you will just say, "Suck it up" at this point, but I really want another job. The only thing I like about this job is that it's 100% remote. It also pays $60k a year, so a replacement should be at least that salary.

Most postings I see require professional experience of 5 years or more, and knowledge of other frameworks. I can work on getting knowledge of the other frameworks, but will have no professional experience with them. I don't live in an area with a lot of software development jobs, and the ones I see are for non-IT organizations that want 1 person to run a distributed system from 10 or more locations. A hospital system out here wants to pay $30k a year for a guy to be both software developer for new tools as well as the helpdesk and IT support guy that's on-call for four locations in the county. I made more than that before I got into the development industry, for less work, and would rather leave than settle for something like that.

I've thought about moving to somewhere near San Francisco or San Jose, but I have my daughter to think about. I have joint custody of her, and would have to give that up in order to move out of the county.

I like programming and using it to solve problems. I like designing architectures and how all the components will interface. I like designing and normalizing databases. I like taking part in coding competitions for employers that are well-known (Amazon, Facebook, Uber, Twitch, etc.), even though I often just place middle of the pack. When that happens, I feel like I'm an imposter in this industry.

I think I have the most fun just working on small projects for personal use. My latest is an assistant calculator for the game Transport Fever to figure out cargo throughputs per annum based on the in-game timing information. Past projects have also been small. Ones I could use in a portfolio are a sudoku solver desktop application, PC/Web game in Unity that is a 3D FPS remake of Duck Hunt that allows open world exploration but locks the camera's viewpoint for shooting events, and a building assistant for Rome II: Total War that maps out all the bonuses/perks of user-specified building combinations in provinces so users can record their long term building plans without using all their turns to see the final results.

I seem to be an unproductive, average developer who dabbles in projects here and there.

This is what I want from other Ranters. Just say something. I don't care if it is, "Suck it up and get better." It could be your tips for finding and securing a new position. It could even be empathy, if such a thing exists on the Internet. Whatever you want, just say something that will help get me thinking of what the next steps in my career should be.

How do I solve this board without guessing? Always get stuck on these and what the pattern to look for is.

If you're already root, does that mean you can play "just ku"?