From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2006-08-18T03:57:08+09:00
Subject: Re: [SUMMARY] Pen and Paper (#90)

On Aug 17, 2006, at 9:23 AM, Morton Goldberg wrote:

>> The downside of the JC Warnsdorff heuristic is that is doesn't  
>> always work.
>> Depending on your starting position and which squares you visit  
>> first, it can
>> paint itself into a corner.  The problem is more common on certain  
>> board sizes,
>> but it does happen.  The upside is, it's so darn quick (because it  
>> doesn't
>> backtrack), you can do multiple searches and still be quicker than  
>> the brute
>> force approach.  If one attempt fails, just try again.  Most  
>> solutions used this
>> approach.
>
> Re: ... because it doesn't backtrack ...
>
> The heuristic can be used to improve a backtracking solver.

That's a good point.  David Tran's solution does both.

James Edward Gray II