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Comment by userundefined | Hacker News Reader

Heya, here's a crossword builder I am working on as a hobby project. Backend is pure Go, frontend is in Typescript. I have a personal backlog of features to add (like allowing users to create custom grids), and I'm glad to take any feedback on what I've got so far.

TL;DR: pick a grid, add some words, auto-fill, add some clues. Submit to NYT and make $$$ (good luck with that step though).

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This is very cool. I have a possible use case for this: spaced repetition for learning new vocabulary. If you could easily generate crosswords for the words someone is learning (plus some filler words that the learner already knows), it would be much more entertaining than reviewing Anki cards.

I think the constraints are more relaxed for this use case. The grid really doesn't need to look as neat as an NYT crossword puzzle.

I bet you can already market this to ESL teachers, and perhaps make some $$$ off your hobby project. Good luck with that! (Of course, I mean it sincerely, not ironically :-))

Thanks! It's a cool idea and giving a user the ability to specify the words, but let the algo choose their locations might be an easy extension to try out. The behavior you describe can then be met. I've added it to my personal backlog, cheers!

BTW, grid neatness isn't a limitation itself, the size and complexity (overlaps, large words) are. Also I already do symmetry checks, so helping users generate symmetric grids shouldn't be too hard.

Do you plan to open source it?

Mulling over it. I feel the underlying solver itself is something I've invested a fair bit of time and I'm not sure I want to open source it yet. I might marinate on it a bit and do it in the future.

Alright. Thank you

Seems like your site is dead.

Classic hug of death, it seems.

Haha, yep, indeed. I did try to bake in some throttling behavior up front, but just had to crank it up a bit now, will see how that holds. Oh yeah, and for the curious, I am running on E2 freebie in GCE, so my "scaling" limits are pretty pathetic.

Thanks for the traffic, I mean, the love, y'all!

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