[tetha]

Well you have a correct solver to the problem. Couldn't you just randomly generate an input, push it through the certified solver and supply me with the input-output-pair?

For one, even if this is the actual test input you use, I will not know it.

For two, it might not contain the trigger for my errors, but if I can get enough such samples, I should eventually get a sample which contains the problematic input.

For three, from what I see, the problems should be possible to generate randomly, especially if the certified solver rejects malformed input. E.g. for the missle problem, throw together N numbers and look what happens until the certified solver outputs a proper solution.

[federicof]

In theory it can be done, but it would be very expensive in terms of computational power. Anyway, you raised a very good point that we will keep in mind for the near future. Thanks indeed for your feedback and the nice discussion.

[tetha]

I see this concern. I thought a bit more about this during the day. The computational power required could be reduced if you stored the generated inputs and present them to the user if he requests additional help.

Given this, this system could be extended using a rating-system by users ("Click here if this input helped you solve the issue"). This would overall result in a bunch of inputs being generated (basically whenever someone needs a new input), and some edge case inputs will overall bubble to the top, because they are rated helpful more often than others.

Anyway, I'm happy to help. Good luck :)

[federicof]

Cool, this one is a very good idea actually, a user generated database of test cases for each puzzle! I'm putting it in our backlog, thank you very much!