Mazette

4 years ago by whoisburbansky

Popped in expecting JS code procedurally generating and solving the mazes on the fly, but it looks like the page just pulls animated GIFs of pre-generated maze solutions?

There are only two GIFs in the `/mazes/L40` directory, so now I'm lost as to how the query parameters in the `img src` determine which maze solution is used.

4 years ago by livre

The query parameters don't affect which solution is used. They are only used to force the browser to reload the gif from the server each time, bypassing the browser cache. The only thing that determines what maze gif you get is probably some server-side code that chooses between mazes/L40/L40-01.gif and mazes/L40/L40-02.gif with each page load.

4 years ago by whoisburbansky

Ahhh that makes sense, thanks. For some reason I could have sworn I saw multiple solutions for a single maze, which is why I jumped to the query parameters having something to do with the solution picked.

4 years ago by reflexe

I feel cheated now

4 years ago by cscheid

If you enjoyed that, you'll probably also enjoy the "Maze Generation" section of Mike Bostock's Visualizing Algorithms talk: https://bost.ocks.org/mike/algorithms/#maze-generation

4 years ago by tartoran

This is great, I've bumped into this a while ago but lost the link. The maze generated algorithm gradually transformed into a tidy tree is very insightful.

4 years ago by jhbadger

There's also a whole book dedicated to maze generating and solving: Jamis Buck's "Mazes for Programmers" https://pragprog.com/titles/jbmaze/mazes-for-programmers/

4 years ago by ashtonbaker

very nice, thank you.

4 years ago by skrebbel

I really wonder what brings someone to design a logo and register a domain name for a site that displays one out of two GIFs, randomly. Is it some kind of "how mesmerized can we make HN" performance art?

4 years ago by awame

Exactly!

4 years ago by skrebbel

Love it :-)

4 years ago by awame

Share it! Art is for everyone :-)

4 years ago by INTPenis

It actually passes the exit because it's not making the "turn" to it. So it tries a bunch of other paths first before the time comes to try the turn towards the exit.

4 years ago by nxpnsv

It had me pulling my hair

4 years ago by Pompidou

Funfact : in the south-east of France, "mazette" is an interjection used to express astonishment or incredulity. It is used alone, as a sentence : "He is a billionaire. Mazette!".

4 years ago by davidw

Maybe the same root as the Italian 'ammazza!' ? Which literally means 'kill', but it's not a violent expression.

4 years ago by Pompidou

I can find one etyomoly for "mazette" used as a noun, but it doesn't fit very well to the use of the interjection. Maybe it's linked the same root as "maze" and old english "amazian" (to confuse/perplex).

4 years ago by codeulike

Here's are some more interesting maze algorithms with proper live demos: http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/under-the-hood/

This one is really nice to watch: http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2015/1/15/better-recursive-divis...

4 years ago by undefined

[deleted]

4 years ago by Secretmapper

I'm not sure how kosher this is as it's my own project, but this reminds me of a project I did for college back then:

https://arianv.com/post/cs-180-pathfinding/

It's a python/jupyter project though that's just rendered into html. It's over-engineered and over-explained :D