From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2006-01-20T07:57:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Quiz #62

On Jan 19, 2006, at 2:22 PM, Andrew Dudzik wrote:

> Hi all--just found my way into this list by way of Ruby Quiz, which  
> looks
> amazing

Thanks!

> and I look forward to participating in successive weeks.  I'm a
> newcomer to Ruby in general.

Then let me welcome you.

> I took a few shots at #62 and was unable to come up with anything  
> that would
> terminate in a reasonable amount of time. ("reasonable" =  
> "overnight")  But
> I did look over the posted answer and it seems that the algorithm  
> fails in
> the case of a 3x6 truck bed with boxes of sizes 2x3, 1x3, and 1x3--it
> concludes that two loads are needed, while the other two solutions  
> give the
> correct result of a single load:

Great example.  I was looking for one of these yesterday, but kept  
coming up short.

I'm actually wondering if the algorithm couldn't be adapted to handle  
this.  I believe it's possible.  The placement of the first block  
ruins 6 other squares (because of padding).  When placed correctly,  
it only ruins three.  I bet the code could be made to spot this...

James Edward Gray II