Automated cryptic crossword solvers

[nickbarnes]

Helen and I successfully completed yesterday's Guardian crossword. It wasn't especially difficult, but we are especially slow sometimes. I posted on FB, and was asked whether it would be quicker to write a program to solve crosswords. I was pointed to an automated solver for cryptic crosswords, and decided to try out the free trial version.

Comments

[manjushra]

!Hovercraft!

[writinghawk]

And here is the crossword of which you write. I did it in half an hour, but it went nice and smoothly with no headbashing holdups (which would normally cause me to advert to a word matcher or just give up or cheat, not having your patience). Nice puzzle by the way - Orlando can usually be relied on. 21A for favourite clue of the day.

It seems to me you underestimate the likely potential of solvers. For one thing, I imagine the full version will do a try on the whole grid. The scores show it pretty much knew which ones it had got correct, and once it had got 6D, for example, it would have known better than to imagine 4A was REBUFF. It shouldn't be hard for it to recalculate the scores and I imagine it would get quite a long way with a simple iterative approach.

Also of course, as a solving aid rather than just a solver, it would certainly speed one up no end.

[nickbarnes]

Of course I am resting my thumb quite heavily on the scales here, as you suggest. I don't have the patience to give it the whole grid, but I imagine that if I did so it might manage to get half of it done.

[writinghawk]

"Your comment has been posted. According to this journal's settings, it has been marked as spam"

Yeah, I forgot to ask if you wanted any of that stuff that rhymes with Niagara? Best rates!

[henry_the_cow]

Well, it got four more right than I did. Cryptic crosswords are a mystery to me.