November, 2022

May, 2023

Made starter code stuff (1.5 hr)
- fetch word list and convert to array (/r/n?)
- convert input into array
- check if string is a word (horrible time complexity, iterating through 30,000+ words lol -> most of the time comes from trying to find ways around this)
Attempted to solve using 2D array
No idea how to write algorithm (30 min experimenting)
Try to sort first (1 hr)
- awful time complexity

Looked up how to make trie and made one (2 hr)
- Took a while because I commented all code to try to further my own understanding of how it works
- I still don’t really get it
Implemented depth-first search (2 hr)
- Didn’t work as intended
Sorting still takes ages

Looked up a method to solve Boggle (basically the same game) that used a Graph structure
- Also don’t know how it works
- Spent an hour trying to make it then realized there’s no point if I can’t figure out how it works

After realizing there’s no point trying different methods if I don’t know how they work, I looked up more methods for solving, and found out that a 2D array is fastest
Sorting took ages still, so I experimented with asynch functions (30min)
- I found out that the javascript sort function did it basically instantly (wow!) (30 min)
Adapt Geeks4Geeks code and comment everything so that I know that I actually understand how it works (4 hr)
- Really cool recursive solve function
It works with test array!

Made a input box and a function to get the letters put into the input box and convert that into a 2D array (30 min)
- Didn’t always work -> solution was to uppercase all inputs
After making sure that it would work with any letter combination, I made real UI
Flexbox of a 4x4 grid with input boxes with unique IDs (2 hr)
Function to convert the inputs to 2D array (30 min)
“Enter” event listener to solve and show words at the bottom of the screen (30 min)
- Realized that it was showing words alphabetically -> Made a selection sort algorithm from scratch, complexity is probably not optimal lol (30 min)

Inputting letter by letter is too slow, wasting time in the game to click on each box
- Loop to add event listeners to move to next box on key up (1 hr)
  - Bugs:
    - Makes deleting letters hard
    - Multiple letters?
    - Non-letters?
  - Solution:
    - If statements and test functions! (2 hr)
Scrolling through words is not convenient
- Add another div to display words and instructions (30 min)
  - Left and right arrow event listeners to show next and previous words (30 min)