From white-boarding my ideas on a Google Doc, to writing a formal design document in Crosswords, my ability to communicate technical ideas clearly is being put to the test.

Writing documentation is critical to guide others’ understanding of the code and choices made on a particular codebase. Especially when several developers are introduced to the system, a way to reference material leads to more preparedness to contribute to the codebase.

I wrote a design document introducing the concepts I would like to implement towards creating a way to generate a dynamic grid. Critique is welcome.

Standard libipuz crosswords currently rely on using an existing dictionary to fill a static box of X length x Y width. However, the implementation of vocab puzzles goes against this logic and instead generates a new grid of N length x M width based on a list of 0 <= W <= 30 words of 1 <= L <= 25 characters long.

I reconsidered the idea of using a GArray to store unplaced words because I want something idempotent. To avoid unwanted time complexity bloat, the backend should not carry the memory of unplaced words. Instead, the frontend will compare the generated grid against the original list to manage words that couldn’t be placed.

Integrating this new feature will be a fascinating technical challenge.

I created a new IpuzVocab class which inherits from IpuzCrossword. I learned how GNOME manages its developer documentation by writing a file myself to introduce this class. Writing this document made me think about the whole picture: how vocab puzzles handle grids, clues, and guesses, comparing it to standard crossword puzzles. I wrote the support to display a vocab puzzle in light and dark mode, with my next goal to integrate them via gi-docgen.