Three Wordle Assistants - Cleve Moler on Mathematics and Computing

[poster]

When I tackle a Wordle puzzle, I like to make all the key decisions myself. My three assistants set up puzzles and suggest words when I ask for help, but I guide the actual solution. My assistants also make it possible for me to play Wordle anywhere, anytime, even when my laptop is in airplane mode. I don't need the New York Times or access to the Web.

Contents

• Three Assistants
• Vocabulary
• Words
• Wordle
• NYT
• Pared Down
• Five Golds
• Thanks
• Software

Three Assistants

Wordler, Words and Wordie are the three assistants. Wordler replaces the Times by generating puzzles and evaluating responses. Words provides lists of possible responses. Wordie handles the Wordler Window and colors the letters gray, green or gold.

Vocabulary

Words has a vocabulary of 4665 five-letter English words. Any of them are acceptable responses. The vocabulary begins with

vocab = [ ... "ABEAM" "ABETS" "ABHOR" "ABIDE" "ABLED" "ABLER" "ABODE" "ABORT" ...And, 584 lines later, ends with

"ZILCH" "ZINCS" "ZINGS" "ZIPPY" "ZOMBI" "ZONAL" "ZONED" "ZONES" ... "ZOOMS" ];If you were to print the entire vocabulary with 40 lines per page, you would print over 100 pages of words.

Words

It took me a long time to write the Words assistant, which is called whenever the Words button in the Wordle Window is clicked.




Words is supported by a seventeen-program library of functions named Wordspq where p and q are nonnegative integers with p+q