Racket Programming the Fun Way

7SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

For all the problems we have encountered so far, there was a direct method to compute the solution. But this is not always the case. For many problems, we have to search for the solution using some type of algorithm, such as when solving a Sudoku puzzle or the n-queens problem. In these cases, the process involves trying a series of steps until either we find the solution or we have to back up to a previous step to try an alternative route. In this chapter we’ll explore a number of algorithms that allow us to efficiently select a path that leads to a solution. Such an approach is known as a heuristic. In general, a heuristic ...