From: "trans.  (T. Onoma)" <transami@...>
Date: 2004-12-10T05:30:01+09:00
Subject: Re: [SUMMARY] Crosswords (#10)

On Thursday 09 December 2004 02:47 pm, Andrew Johnson wrote:
| Out of interest, I downloaded the zipfile of solutions from the Quiz
| site:
|
|   http://www.grayproductions.net/ruby_quiz/quiz10_sols.zip
|
| and modified the 10 solutions to iterate over ARGV 25.times generating
| puzzles for each file in the argument list. Each was called as:
|
|   time ruby crossword.rb ../../files/* > OUT
|
| where ../../files contained the following layouts (from the zipfile):
|
|   big_layout.txt      size => 15x15
|   ruby-quiz.layout    size => 18x15
|   simple_layout.txt   size =>  7x6
|
| and ruby is ruby 1.8.2 (2004-07-20) [i686-linux] with oniguruma.
|
| The results tabulate as follows (this is not a speedy machine):
|
|                            real     user      sys
|   Markus_Koenig            3.028    3.000     0.030
|   Andrew_Johnson           4.062    4.040     0.020
|   T._Onoma                 5.175    5.130     0.040
|   James_Edward_Gray_II     5.674    5.590     0.080
|   Jim_Menard               6.485    6.450     0.040
|   Brian_Schroeder          7.425    7.210     0.040
|   Jamis_Buck               8.378    8.350     0.030
|   Jim_Freeze              11.989   11.970     0.020
|   Pit_Capitain            13.949   13.910     0.040
|   Clark                   15.304   15.270     0.030
|
| Note: speed was in no way a criteria/goal of the exercise, and this
| is only a *very* rudimentary benchmark --- large grids (100x100), or grids
| with more (or less) complicated fill patterns may very well alter the
| ordering significantly. Any attempts to derive meaning from these results
| will be met with a withering stare and quite possibly a rolling of the
| eyes. You have been warned.

Thanks Andrew. I appreciate this. My solution faired a good bit better than I 
thought it would. That's encouraging, not only are there some optimizations 
that could easily be done, but now I know that the tactic I employed here may 
actually be a good approach for other things in the future.

Double Thanks,
T.