From: Ruby Quiz <james@...>
Date: 2005-05-06T22:53:49+09:00
Subject: [QUIZ] Amazing Mazes (#31)

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by Matt Linnell

We've had crosswords, cryptograms, chess puzzles, madlibs ... so why don't we
try our hand at mazes?  We can define the two basic components of this problem
as:

	- Generating the maze
	- Solving the maze

* Generating the maze *

The maze is to be rectangular in shape, with the height and width determined at
run time.  All nodes of the maze must be reachable from any point.  In other
words, if one were to randomly pick a start/stop, the maze is always solvable. 
Furthermore, let us enforce that only 1 viable solution for the maze exists for
any given start/stop (you cannot reach the same destination from 2 different
routes).  Generate an ASCII output representing the maze.

* Solving the Maze *

Given a maze produced from your above code, find the solution.  Produce ASCII
output to demonstrate/visualize solution.

* Bonus Points *

	1) Calculate which pair of start/stop points in the maze which gives
	   you the longest possible path.
	2) Calculate which pair of start/stop points in the maze which gives
	   the most complicated path (involves the most turns)

Example command line execution:

	$> ruby maze.rb {height} {width} [ {start} {stop} ]