What is the ideal computer language for computer-construction of crosswords and Sudokus?

Such a language must be easily able to:
1. Draw squares within squares, with text and graphics in, on both the computer screen and printer.
2. Search through large web encyclopedias and dictionaries for words to add to a large database.
3. Quickly sort 10 million or so words in a database, and maintain a ranking of “knowability” and “already used”.
4. Fast random number generation.
5. Generate Sudoku difficulty rankings, using MY method of solving them (not the standard rankings).
6. Fast algorithm for solving multiple simultaneous logical equations (eg. A or B but not both)
7. Intelligently using the web come up with new straight and cryptic clues for crossword words.
8. Rapidly process 2-D arrays.

Also ideally (different project)
9. Animate text-boxes and line graphics using key frames.

Clearly Fortran won’t do, as it has real trouble with items 1, 2, 7 and 9.

mollwollfumble said:

What is the ideal computer language for computer-construction of crosswords and Sudokus?

Such a language must be easily able to:
1. Draw squares within squares, with text and graphics in, on both the computer screen and printer.
2. Search through large web encyclopedias and dictionaries for words to add to a large database.
3. Quickly sort 10 million or so words in a database, and maintain a ranking of “knowability” and “already used”.
4. Fast random number generation.
5. Generate Sudoku difficulty rankings, using MY method of solving them (not the standard rankings).
6. Fast algorithm for solving multiple simultaneous logical equations (eg. A or B but not both)
7. Intelligently using the web come up with new straight and cryptic clues for crossword words.
8. Rapidly process 2-D arrays.

Also ideally (different project)
9. Animate text-boxes and line graphics using key frames.

Clearly Fortran won’t do, as it has real trouble with items 1, 2, 7 and 9.

I doubt if anything will do 7 very well.

For the rest I’d use Excel+VBA for graphics and interactive stuff and Python+Numpy+Scipy for working with arrays, sorting etc.

mollwollfumble said:

What is the ideal computer language for computer-construction of crosswords and Sudokus?

Such a language must be easily able to:
1. Draw squares within squares, with text and graphics in, on both the computer screen and printer.
2. Search through large web encyclopedias and dictionaries for words to add to a large database.
3. Quickly sort 10 million or so words in a database, and maintain a ranking of “knowability” and “already used”.
4. Fast random number generation.
5. Generate Sudoku difficulty rankings, using MY method of solving them (not the standard rankings).
6. Fast algorithm for solving multiple simultaneous logical equations (eg. A or B but not both)
7. Intelligently using the web come up with new straight and cryptic clues for crossword words.
8. Rapidly process 2-D arrays.

Also ideally (different project)
9. Animate text-boxes and line graphics using key frames.

Clearly Fortran won’t do, as it has real trouble with items 1, 2, 7 and 9.

PHP + MySQL (or similar) is probably your best bet.

BASIC

Swearing at it.

It doesn’t make anything happen but you feel better afterwards.

ruby said:

Swearing at it.

It doesn’t make anything happen but you feel better afterwards.

Not that kind of language!

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

What is the ideal computer language for computer-construction of crosswords and Sudokus?

Such a language must be easily able to:
1. Draw squares within squares, with text and graphics in, on both the computer screen and printer.
2. Search through large web encyclopedias and dictionaries for words to add to a large database.
3. Quickly sort 10 million or so words in a database, and maintain a ranking of “knowability” and “already used”.
4. Fast random number generation.
5. Generate Sudoku difficulty rankings, using MY method of solving them (not the standard rankings).
6. Fast algorithm for solving multiple simultaneous logical equations (eg. A or B but not both)
7. Intelligently using the web come up with new straight and cryptic clues for crossword words.
8. Rapidly process 2-D arrays.

Also ideally (different project)
9. Animate text-boxes and line graphics using key frames.

Clearly Fortran won’t do, as it has real trouble with items 1, 2, 7 and 9.

I doubt if anything will do 7 very well.

For the rest I’d use Excel+VBA for graphics and interactive stuff and Python+Numpy+Scipy for working with arrays, sorting etc.

A single language, please. I’ve never even heard of half of those.

For number 7, I can use some brainwork of my own. One type of clue I’d generate by running a dictionary backwards. For example, a dictionary gives the definition of “intrepid” as “fearless” so I would use “intrepid” as a clue for “fearless” not the other way around.

Ruby.

sibeen said:

Ruby.

On rails, surely.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

What is the ideal computer language for computer-construction of crosswords and Sudokus?

Such a language must be easily able to:
1. Draw squares within squares, with text and graphics in, on both the computer screen and printer.
2. Search through large web encyclopedias and dictionaries for words to add to a large database.
3. Quickly sort 10 million or so words in a database, and maintain a ranking of “knowability” and “already used”.
4. Fast random number generation.
5. Generate Sudoku difficulty rankings, using MY method of solving them (not the standard rankings).
6. Fast algorithm for solving multiple simultaneous logical equations (eg. A or B but not both)
7. Intelligently using the web come up with new straight and cryptic clues for crossword words.
8. Rapidly process 2-D arrays.

Also ideally (different project)
9. Animate text-boxes and line graphics using key frames.

Clearly Fortran won’t do, as it has real trouble with items 1, 2, 7 and 9.

I doubt if anything will do 7 very well.

For the rest I’d use Excel+VBA for graphics and interactive stuff and Python+Numpy+Scipy for working with arrays, sorting etc.

A single language, please. I’ve never even heard of half of those.

For number 7, I can use some brainwork of my own. One type of clue I’d generate by running a dictionary backwards. For example, a dictionary gives the definition of “intrepid” as “fearless” so I would use “intrepid” as a clue for “fearless” not the other way around.

PHP is a web based programming language.
MySQL is used to manipulate a database.
Most of the worlds web sites are based on PHP + MySQL.

1. Simple squares and text can be produced by PHP via HTML/CSS in a browser.
2. PHP can be used to search web based dictionaries and encyclopaedias.
3. MySQL can query and produce sorted results.
4. PHP can easily generate random numbers.
5. ???
6. PHP can be used to solve logical equations.
7. PHP can be used to collect information from other web sites.
8. PHP has a wide variety of array handling routines.
9. PHP can be used to write JavaScript into HTML that can then produce animations.

mollwollfumble said:

What is the ideal computer language for computer-construction of crosswords and Sudokus?

Such a language must be easily able to:
1. Draw squares within squares, with text and graphics in, on both the computer screen and printer.
2. Search through large web encyclopedias and dictionaries for words to add to a large database.
3. Quickly sort 10 million or so words in a database, and maintain a ranking of “knowability” and “already used”.
4. Fast random number generation.
5. Generate Sudoku difficulty rankings, using MY method of solving them (not the standard rankings).
6. Fast algorithm for solving multiple simultaneous logical equations (eg. A or B but not both)
7. Intelligently using the web come up with new straight and cryptic clues for crossword words.
8. Rapidly process 2-D arrays.

Also ideally (different project)
9. Animate text-boxes and line graphics using key frames.

I should also have mentioned for “different project”
10. Best possible font quality (ie. that found in Word or TeX, not the crap fonts in GIMP and browser displays)
11. Fonts must include mathematics, including at the very least ω, ℜ, ∞, and ℵ

Summary of suggested so far:

> Excel+VBA for graphics and interactive stuff and Python+Numpy+Scipy

Definitely not Excel, Numpy, Scipy, single language if at all possible because multiple languages are a major pain. Why not Python alone? or VBA alone?

> Most of the worlds web sites are based on PHP + MySQL. … MySQL can query and produce sorted results. … 5. ???

Could I dispense with MySQL completely? I’m not keen on multi-language programming.

Number 5 is a specific example of Number 6: computation intensive but elementary, Number 6 requires hundreds of millions of trial and error logic steps, so speed is essential.

> Ruby.

What can/can’t that do?

Summary:

I don’t know how to program in any of the languages suggested so far. Which are easiest to learn? And what’s the best tutorial?

mollwollfumble said:

Could I dispense with MySQL completely? I’m not keen on multi-language programming.

MySQL is not a programming language. MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that allows PHP to easily communicate with a database.

If you know any programming languages then PHP will come pretty easily.

• If you know any programming languages then PHP will come pretty easily.

I think I need to learn PHP…

Am I right in thinking that it comes down to PHP vs Ruby vs Python?

If so, is:
Code Wars: Ruby vs Python vs PHP
where I should start?

mollwollfumble said:

> Excel+VBA for graphics and interactive stuff and Python+Numpy+Scipy

Definitely not Excel, Numpy, Scipy, single language if at all possible because multiple languages are a major pain. Why not Python alone? or VBA alone?

Numpy and Scipy are libraries of compiled routines built into Python, so they aren’t really another language to learn. They provide the fast array processing, sorting, random numbers etc.

The problem with using just one language is that you can have easy to use and slow, or hard to use and fast. Python with the two libraries is a way around that.

mollwollfumble said:

Am I right in thinking that it comes down to PHP vs Ruby vs Python?

If so, is:
Code Wars: Ruby vs Python vs PHP
where I should start?

For the task you are attempting, PHP + MySQL is probably the best bet.

The Rev Dodgson said:

The problem with using just one language is that you can have easy to use and slow, or hard to use and fast. Python with the two libraries is a way around that.

If you really want ‘fast’ then you don’t use an interpreted language. The fact is that given the speed of modern computers and the typical tasks asked of them, they are all ‘fast’.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Numpy and Scipy are libraries of compiled routines built into Python, so they aren’t really another language to learn. They provide the fast array processing, sorting, random numbers etc.

The problem with using just one language is that you can have easy to use and slow, or hard to use and fast. Python with the two libraries is a way around that.

Thanks. That makes much more sense to me now. Let’s see, http://www.numpy.org/ looks very useful. Scipy for integration and differentiation. Matplotlib looks good, learn that for later. Pandas perhaps, if other Python has trouble with the databases.

Sympy looks too good to be true – LaTeX typesetting for animating top quality fonts (see items 10 and 11, elementary finite element analysis (how I’ve missed doing that!), quantum Monte-Carlo (I’ve been playing around with that in Fortran).

fsm said:

For the task you are attempting, PHP + MySQL is probably the best bet.

Because it will handle everything I want it to do in a fast and efficient manner and is easy to learn, or because it is popular, or both? Is there a difference between MySQL and SQL? I’ve only ever met SQL in the context of GIS.

mollwollfumble said:

Am I right in thinking that it comes down to PHP vs Ruby vs Python?

If so, is:
Code Wars: Ruby vs Python vs PHP
where I should start?

Looking at that web link now it looks like Python may be the best of the three, for a few reasons:

1. Easiest to learn (though I know C so that would help if I went with PHP)
2. Second most useful (PHP is rated least useful)
3. Fastest (twice as fast as PHP)
4. Because Google Search (uses Python) more closely resembles what I want to do than Wikipedia (uses PHP) or Twitter (uses Ruby)

The Rev Dodgson said:

Numpy and Scipy are libraries of compiled routines built into Python, so they aren’t really another language to learn. They provide the fast array processing, sorting, random numbers etc.

The problem with using just one language is that you can have easy to use and slow, or hard to use and fast. Python with the two libraries is a way around that.

Rev, on Windows or Cygwin? I use both.
Remembering that not everything that works on Linux works on Cygwin?

mollwollfumble said:

Because it will handle everything I want it to do in a fast and efficient manner and is easy to learn, or because it is popular, or both? Is there a difference between MySQL and SQL? I’ve only ever met SQL in the context of GIS.

MySQL can submit SQL queries to a database to store, retrieve, modify or delete data. SQL is the language, MySQL is a database management system. Two different animals.

mollwollfumble said:

Rev, on Windows or Cygwin? I use both.
Remembering that not everything that works on Linux works on Cygwin?

Have to be Windows. I’ve never managed to get X windows graphics to work from Cygwin. And without good graphics it all fails miserably.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Numpy and Scipy are libraries of compiled routines built into Python, so they aren’t really another language to learn. They provide the fast array processing, sorting, random numbers etc.

The problem with using just one language is that you can have easy to use and slow, or hard to use and fast. Python with the two libraries is a way around that.

Rev, on Windows or Cygwin? I use both.
Remembering that not everything that works on Linux works on Cygwin?

Python (+ libraries) works just fine on straight Windows. I’m sure it will work on Linux and Cygwin as well. I use it from Excel, via xlwings, but you can use from command line, or via graphical interface as preferred.

Also wondering why Excel is a non-starter. For the application, it would seem an excellent way to get the graphics set up easily, so you can concentrate on the interesting bits.

But if you are fixed on a non-Excel solution, Python has an excellent graphics library (matplotlib).

mollwollfumble said:

Looking at that web link now it looks like Python may be the best of the three, for a few reasons:

1. Easiest to learn (though I know C so that would help if I went with PHP)
2. Second most useful (PHP is rated least useful)
3. Fastest (twice as fast as PHP)
4. Because Google Search (uses Python) more closely resembles what I want to do than Wikipedia (uses PHP) or Twitter (uses Ruby)

Not so sure about Python being fastest. Pure Python can be very slow (I know nothing about PHP, so it may be even slower). I have found the numpy/scipy routines to be very fast, but the associated routines in pure Python are slow. For instance, solving a large system of linear equations, setting up the matrices and extracting the results can take longer than the actual solution process. Of course if all the steps are < 0.1 seconds, that’s not really a problem.

Also I’m not sure that Google Search still uses Python. I thought they had moved away from it, but could be wrong.

> Also wondering why Excel is a non-starter.

The GUI isn’t what I’m looking for. I want the GUI to be completely clean without extraneous toolbars or proprietary text.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Not so sure about Python being fastest. Pure Python can be very slow (I know nothing about PHP, so it may be even slower). I have found the numpy/scipy routines to be very fast, but the associated routines in pure Python are slow. For instance, solving a large system of linear equations, setting up the matrices and extracting the results can take longer than the actual solution process. Of course if all the steps are < 0.1 seconds, that’s not really a problem.

Also I’m not sure that Google Search still uses Python. I thought they had moved away from it, but could be wrong.

You’re right, Google Search is written in c++. I don’t know why nobody suggested c++ as the ideal language. Bot I’m glad they didn’t. Google search is said to contain some Python.

Speed will be an issue. Trial and error forms a huge part of algorithms for both sudoku and crossword construction, and trial and error is not a rapid algorithm.

mollwollfumble said:

> Also wondering why Excel is a non-starter.

The GUI isn’t what I’m looking for. I want the GUI to be completely clean without extraneous toolbars or proprietary text.

OK, if that’s important then Excel is probably not what you want for the final product, although it seems to me that it would be ideal for initial experiments, and just tack on the gui later (which compared with the other stuff, should be very straightforward).

I think what they do to increase processing speed is this….

you can “overclock” the processor by going into the settings on start up

you can cool the processor by some serious forced cooling , you can buy a special device that be fitted onto the chip

you can somehow use MORE chips to process the info

by doing this you can use brute force from a hardware point of view

oh yes if you overclock without cooling you’ll blow up the chip

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Not so sure about Python being fastest. Pure Python can be very slow (I know nothing about PHP, so it may be even slower). I have found the numpy/scipy routines to be very fast, but the associated routines in pure Python are slow. For instance, solving a large system of linear equations, setting up the matrices and extracting the results can take longer than the actual solution process. Of course if all the steps are < 0.1 seconds, that’s not really a problem.

Also I’m not sure that Google Search still uses Python. I thought they had moved away from it, but could be wrong.

You’re right, Google Search is written in c++. I don’t know why nobody suggested c++ as the ideal language. Bot I’m glad they didn’t. Google search is said to contain some Python.

Speed will be an issue. Trial and error forms a huge part of algorithms for both sudoku and crossword construction, and trial and error is not a rapid algorithm.

But as with the equation solvers, if you can get fast compiled routines to do all the hard work, setting up the input in a slow language should add negligible time to the overall process, which makes Python + libraries a good bet.

By the way, Python also has an add-on called f2py, which compiles Fortran code so that it can be called directly from Python, which seems to work pretty well, and might appeal if you know Fortran better than any of the newer languages.

Just had this in my e-mail:

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-pros-and-cons-vs-C++-python-and-java

my bets moll is that someone has already done a few of those programmes already

use those programmes and overclock the chip

wookiemeister said:

my bets moll is that someone has already done a few of those programmes already

use those programmes and overclock the chip

I agree with all that.

Except for the bit about overclocking.

The Rev Dodgson said:

wookiemeister said:

my bets moll is that someone has already done a few of those programmes already

use those programmes and overclock the chip

I agree with all that.

Except for the bit about overclocking.

as long as you can dump the heat I’d say you’re ok

wookiemeister said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

wookiemeister said:

my bets moll is that someone has already done a few of those programmes already

use those programmes and overclock the chip

I agree with all that.

Except for the bit about overclocking.

as long as you can dump the heat I’d say you’re ok

Usually depends what you are driving doesn’t it?