Wagnerblog

I am not a game programmer. Its not something that interests me at all. Yet I was fascinated with Wei-Meng Lee’s book on Sudoku programming.My interest stemmed from the subject matter, Sudoku, and the way in which Wei Meng Lee structured his book.

“Programming Sudoku” covers a single game – obviously – but does so by first explaining the theory of Sudoku play. I have to confess this primer was much needed. So if I don’t learn anything regarding the code, at least I can play Sudoku now  . Just kidding! The programming material was equally interesting. While the book is written in VB.NET, its algorithms and approach to problems solving the math puzzles presented by the game itself can be easily adapted to any other .NET language.

Have you ever tried to glean insight into an author just by the way his books are written? I picture Me. Lee to be very organized, detail-oriented and thorough. That idea comes from the journey a reader of Mr. Lee’s book takes, step by step building the  code that runs Sudoku. Rarely have I seen so much attention to the flow of material in a tech book. Its almost as though Mr. Lee wanted to be sure the reader is taken in just the right increments through the steps of understanding the algorithms used in the theory of this game as well as how they finally get applied into a functional Windows application. A lesser writer might have rushed through the material and condensed it into a 10 page article on CodeProject.com

“Programming Sudoku” is published by the “Technology In Action” division of Apress and retails for $24.99 It is a nice diversion from the typical drum-beat of acronyms that one has to read up on.