What's New -  July, 2007

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July 25, 2007:  Here is a basic game of Checkers for human players.  The program just handles the moving and scoring, no computer play yet.   The primary motivation for the project is  for use in the projects mentioned last week, but I decided to implement the set of rules for the "American" version of checkers "just for fun".  

Version 2.1 was posted this afternoon, adding an "Undo" function implemented as a debugging aid.  It might also be useful to players studying game strategies.  If you happened to download the program this morning (Version 2.0) consider downloading it again.
 

July 14, 2007: I'm working on two projects which require a checkerboard:  a Fox & Hounds game, and an update to Knight's Tour which quickly finds an example solution for any of the 1984 tours with unique starting and ending points.  While looking for existing programs on DFF with game boards, I ran across and fixed a small error in Gameboards -  Reversi  program.  The program illustrates three different game board styles, each of which allows the game of Reversi to be played.   Board 2 identified the the loser of a game as the winner;  a small problem unless you happen to be the winner!    

  July 12: 2007:  I posted a fix to Cutlist 3.4.1 yesterday to fix a printing problem for manually arranged solutions.  It turns out that if the solution display is scrolled down, the coordinates for the top of the first supply piece, which is no longer visible, gets a negative coordinate assigned reflecting that it is above the top of the visible area.    The Print procedure didn't take that into account.  It does now.  No one ever accused a computer of having common sense!

We will be heading out in a few days  to attend the 50th reunion of my high school "Class of '57".   It should be interesting, even if it turns out to be with a bunch of old folks with failing memories.  I'll fit right in!   Current projects including another Knight's Tour investigation, a version of Mastermind called "Cows and Bulls", a Fox & Hounds solver,   and a couple of others will have to wait a while longer.  

July 8, 2007:  It seems that there are an endless number of word problem variations.   Here's one from the my Mensa Puzzle Calendar for July 4:

Unscramble the letters in the box below and add the missing letter to make a nine-letter word.

I couldn't solve it on my own, but today's version of CrosswordHelper (aka WordCompletion) available as part of our WordStuff program will solve it now.  OK Mensa, "Bring 'em on!".  My wife says that it's cheating when I use one my programs to solve a puzzle, but I hold that it is just an extension of my brain, so it's legal.   That's my position and I'm sticking to it!

July 4, 2007:  Here is the monthly update to Cutlist.  Cutlist lays out cutting diagrams for a set of rectangular parts from a given set of supply material.  It is one  of the few programs on the site which may actually serve a practical purpose.  Several thousand woodworkers have downloaded the program and at least some of them are using it.  As a result, lots of users = lots of errors getting detected.    

Cutlist Version 3.4.1  fixes some problems in the "Arrange manually" form with the "Paste program solution" option added last month.  Solutions which had rotated parts caused problems with displaying, saving, and printing the results.  It now comes a step closer to working correctly.    

July 2, 2007:  Here's a little Dictionary Scan Demo program posted in the  Delphi_Techniques section of DFF.   In relatively few lines of code it scans our 50,000 word dictionary looking for words with three sets of double letters, including the one word which has three adjacent double letter pairs.