Workin' on our knight moves.
Tryin' to make some front page hacker news.
Workin' on our knight moves.
Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
101–110 of 211 posts
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that help you get to the indicated square?
I didn't actually realize the goal of the game was to do it all in order! The help text just says "Move the knight to every square, right to left, top to bottom."
It may have been updated after you started.
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#103I think the instructions should be: Move to the square indicated below the board without moving to a square the queen can capture and without capturing the queen. Once accomplished a new square will be indicated. Repeat until all possible squares are done.
And move the bar to the top with a bit of text - "Next square: F8"
Yeah I spent a lot of time trying to hit every square.
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy... is that what you're supposed to do?!? No wonder the bar wasn't growing even though I jumped to every possible square -.-
Judging by this thread every single person did the same thing and became equally frustrated (myself included).
How is this #3 on my HN today? Is it supposed to be a lesson on how NOT to write?
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just put a target on each goal square in turn.
Yeah I don't think text instructions are even necessary here if you make enough visual suggestions.
I think the text is useful for describing the ultimate goal, but agree that visual suggestions would make it easier to figure out what the problem is about.
For example, I read this as a variation of the knight's tour but was confused as to why they didn't highlight the visited squares. (Answer: it isn't a knight's tour since each square will be visited more than once.)
Another example, the description itself didn't quite make sense since it mentioned a sequence but didn't really say that certain squares must be skipped. (In retrospect, the answer is obvious. The queen makes certain squares invalid destinations, along with being invalid intermediate steps to that destination. But it won't be obvious to some people upon initially reading the instructions.)
Finally, the purpose of the square shown in the completion gauge isn't explained at all. Since it is not explained, I did not link it to the description of the goal.
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#106I mapped out the structure of the board as a graph of which squares you can get to from which other squares. It's surprisingly stringy without all the squares forbidden by the queen placement. https://i.imgur.com/8OuQcu8.png
This is the way.
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should highlight the target square in the board instead of only writing it in the "clock".
> should highlight the target square in the board instead of only writing it in the "clock". If it's a visualization exercise, they should not. Gaining intuition for notation is strangely enabling, particularly if you have an algebraic mind.
It depends upon what you are trying to visualize. If you are trying to visualize the pattern of the knight's moves, e.g. how to reach a specific square using a sequence of moves, then highlighting the target would be more valuable. The displacement matters, not the absolute positions. The absolute positions are more of a hindrance since it makes it more difficult to generalize the sequence of moves.
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
something something programmer found dead in the shower
Maybe we were pushing the programmer a little too hard for changes if they felt compelled to continue working on their project while showering. (Remember folks: using a computer, or any other electric appliance, in the shower is a bad idea!)
...unless it's an electric shower?
(Much as I'm tempted to agree they were a bad idea, we're kind of past that point and it's sort of fine... A bad idea well-executed?)
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#109After a couple tries got it done in 16 minutes or so. Probably laughably bad for anyone good at chess but it was a fun and enlightening challenge. About midway through I had a sudden click and figured out the pattern to hit the right squares. I don’t know how to put it into words but I believe there’s a three move combo that helps you move off of one set of squares and onto the other set. And my intuition got a lot better towards the end, even getting the last squares almost by accident. Funny how that happens
Re: Ain't it funny how the knight moves?
#110The fact that it doesn't highlight where you've moved already makes it no fun. Edit: the directions weren't super clear. I see that you're actually supposed to go to every square in a specific order (first G8, then F8, E8, etc), not just visit them all in any order. That means you have to do a bunch of laborious trips around the queen to go to certain squares since you won't have enough room to maneuver directly ther…
I agree, but I wonder if it's on purpose. I found the repo[1] and it's very small readme says it's a "Chess visualization exercise" So I'm wondering if it's an extreme exercise in memorization to help you visualize games better. (I'm just talking out my butt here, I know nothing about chess puzzles) [1]: https://github.com/jairtrejo/knight-moves
That's how I took it as well. Everyone talks about highlighting stuff but you don't get highlights in real games. I got more comfortable with knight manouvers and chess notation thanks to this puzzle.
It should definitely have some visual tutorial for people to understand how it works though.