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pdwetz

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Full stack web programmer. https://www.wetzdev.com/

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For generating puzzles it's really useful since it lets you determine if a randomly generated puzzle has only one possible path to solving it (exact cover problem). And it's fast so adding it to a pipeline doesn't incur much if any overhead.

Visual Studio itself also does that (I forget when it was introduced; a few versions back I think?). I haven't used Resharper in a long time, so I'm not sure how it compares now, though.

Is making your own an option in the UK? I have a few friends in the US that love it, but I think you need easy service for the canisters. More effort to be sure, but at least then you can use whatever syrup you like.

Backtracking as a strategy definitely seems... underwhelming. But it does have its uses. I wrote a few solvers, and they all served a different purpose. One was based on Norvig's python post on the subject; I used that to generate many puzzles very quickly. Then I used a backtracker (using Knuth's Dancing Links) to reduce the set to puzzles with only a single solution. The last solver was a "human" solver that used various known strategies; this let me grade difficulty without having to manually attempt every puzzle (although I still found it useful in my app UI to tag puzzles as being too hard/easy). The human solver is incredibly inefficient, but the one with the most room for growth (new strats, etc).

SEEKING WORK - Remote/Westchester, NY Area

I can prototype new ideas, research technologies/trends, extend/maintain an existing system, or quickly build out a one-off microsite/console app. I can work solo or in teams with equal ease. I'm a full stack programmer primarily using C# (.net core) for backend work on linux VMs and Azure appservice. Front end work is mostly jquery/bootstrap with some Vue experimenting of late. Reporting via PowerBI.

Portfolio - https://wetzdev.com/

Email - my user name on gmail

For my site I use a backtracker to find a large number of single solution puzzles (rather fast). Those are used as a test base for my "human" solver (pretty slow), which are used for scoring and difficulty levels. I find that it's a nice balance.

SEEKING WORK - Remote/Westchester, NY Area

I can prototype new ideas, research technologies/trends, extend/maintain an existing system, or quickly build out a one-off microsite/console app. I can work solo or in teams with equal ease. I'm a full stack programmer primarily using C# (.net core) for backend work on linux VMs and Azure appservice. Front end work is mostly jquery/bootstrap with some Vue/React experimenting of late. Reporting via PowerBI.

Portfolio - https://wetzdev.com/

Email - my user name on gmail

SEEKING WORK - Remote/Westchester, NY Area

I can prototype new ideas, research technologies/trends, extend/maintain an existing system, or quickly build out a one-off microsite. I can work solo or in teams with equal ease. I'm a full stack programmer primarily using C# (standard or .net core) for backend work on linux VMs and Azure appservice. Front end work is mostly jquery/bootstrap with some Vue/React experimenting of late. Reporting via PowerBI.

Portfolio - https://wetzdev.com/

Email - my user name on gmail

I still miss Front Page Sports Football from the 90s. While we owned a couple of different versions, the early one that had the most play time for us was completely unlicensed, so we made up names for all of the teams. It was a really nice balance of sim, play designer, and arcade football. My brother and I each had a team and played through multiple seasons. If memory serves, I tanked the end of one season to ensure the #1 overall pick in the next draft. Unfortunately, with our setup only one person could play at a time so we had to sim any games our teams played each other (including a championship game or two).

SEEKING WORK - Remote/Westchester, NY Area

I can prototype new ideas, research technologies/trends, extend/maintain an existing system, or quickly build out a one-off microsite. I can work solo or in teams with equal ease. I'm a full stack programmer primarily using C# (standard or .net core) for backend work on linux VMs and Azure appservice. Front end work is mostly jquery/bootstrap with some Vue experimenting of late.

Portfolio - https://wetzdev.com/

Email - my user name on gmail

SEEKING WORK - Remote/Westchester, NY Area

I can prototype new ideas, research technologies/trends, extend/maintain an existing system, or quickly build out a one-off microsite. I can work solo or in teams with equal ease. I'm a full stack programmer primarily using C# (standard or .net core) for backend work. Many years of experience with jquery, bootstrap, etc., along with recent experience with Vue. I've spent a lot of time of late building PowerBI reports for both client and personal projects.

Portfolio - https://wetzdev.com/

Email - my user name on gmail

If you want to interact with the database, in my experience Dapper and real actual SQL statements beat it hands down (both readability and performance). I love utilizing LINQ aside from that (e.g. creating custom comparison methods/classes and using it's baked in set operations for comparing/contrasting multiple collections).

It's been a constantly moving target for the last two years. In theory, it should be getting more stable now with v2 of Core and hopefully all the docs and various tutorials/blogs/videos/etc will follow suit over the coming months. In the meantime, you'll probably want to filter out anything prior to 2017.

I'm all for using a password manager. I also think it's not user-friendly for a single application to force one to use multiple email addresses. It's unnecessarily confusing and annoying.

SEEKING WORK - Remote/Westchester, NY Area

I can prototype new ideas, research technologies/trends, extend/maintain an existing system, or quickly build out a one-off microsite. I can work solo or in teams with equal ease. I'm a full stack programmer primarily using C# (standard or .net core) for backend work, along with PHP for creating custom WordPress and WooCommerce plugins/themes. Many years of experience with jquery, bootstrap, etc., along with recent experience with Vue.

Portfolio - https://wetzdev.com/

Email - my user name on gmail