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Programming Sudoku

April 13, '06 Comments [11] Posted in Programming
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My wife <gasp> declared last week that she wants to learn to program. We sat down and did the whole hello world thing, but that got boring and not-concrete very quickly.

Enter Programming Sudoku from Wei-Meng Lee. This little gem walks you through building a Sudoku generator and solver in Visual Basic 2005.

This book is easy to follow and at the end you'll end up with a very complete (and extendible) WinForms application.

I'm a fan of programming books that walk the reader through the creation of an application (and the thought behind the decisions) from start to finish. Reminds me of the apps I used to type in from Compute! magazine.

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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. I am a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Comments [11]
Thursday, April 13, 2006 8:29:57 AM UTC
May we see two (maybe three with Z) bloggers here? ;-)
Keyvan Nayyeri
Thursday, April 13, 2006 1:04:38 PM UTC
This does look like a preferred method to get someone interested in programming. A lot of times, when starting out in something so abstract, Hello World! simply doesn't cut it. It is good to see a product out there (as I'm sure there are many) that can take a person's hobby and get them interested in other facets, such as programming.
Aaron Corcoran
Thursday, April 13, 2006 1:45:01 PM UTC
I definitely agree that books that walk you through the app from start to finish is a great way to learn.
Do you know of any other?
Jiho Han
Thursday, April 13, 2006 4:46:40 PM UTC
Sudoku in .NET? Everyone knows that's best done with SQL.

http://www.vsj.co.uk/articles/display.asp?id=540
Jon Galloway
Thursday, April 13, 2006 6:35:33 PM UTC
Just a few days ago I discovered a sample project on MSDN written in .NET for TabletPCs: It's a very good version of Sudoku and graphically appealing:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/tabletpc/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dntablet/html/tbconSudokuSampleFinal.asp
Stefan
Thursday, April 13, 2006 8:47:25 PM UTC
In a moment of jealousy, I showed my wife this post, and she wants to know how your wife got on. She might be turning a corner... ;-)
Simon
Thursday, April 13, 2006 9:01:01 PM UTC
Hi, here is a good nline Sudoku site : http://www.misterfast.com/uk/free-sudoku-puzzles.html
Nice game
Bye
Sudoku
Thursday, April 13, 2006 9:27:24 PM UTC
What about "Learn to Program", by Chris Pine (it's from the Pragmatic Bookshelf)? It's a gentle introduction to programming that uses Ruby as its language of choice. Worth a look. I'm buying one for my sister later this month.
MauricioC
Thursday, April 13, 2006 10:33:09 PM UTC
That's pretty cool. My wife will love it.
Franklin
Friday, April 14, 2006 9:57:16 AM UTC
Started to learn my girlfriend programming too some weeks ago. allready programmend and really nice calculator (think thats one of the easy programms to do after hello world. that also covers most of the basic syntax elements).
what i really like was that i never thought of the problems you have when you really start learn to program. i found it very impressive what things she asked, that i never thought of.
christoph richter
Monday, April 17, 2006 9:40:21 PM UTC
Heh, good luck with that. I started programming with C For Dummies Vols 1 and 2 by Dan Gookin. I liked it a lot, and he is a funny author. Your wife might not get some of his jokes though, some of them are rooted in nerd trivia...
Matt
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.