Artificial Intelligence

So much for my proof-of-concept Wordle cracker – but as always, not all options have been exhausted in this Snapshot, because DIY code invites you to experiment. Figure 3 offers a sneak peek into the secret explorations I conjured up after putting the basic solver in place: I let the machine automaton play against itself, by picking a random word and then trying to guess it. This means that new algorithms can be tested in terms of efficiency and with a view to continuous improvement.

Figure 3: The Wordle automaton plays games against itself.

And there you have it. The purpose of this article was to illustrate how to quickly put together a proof of concept to help a simple Go program understand the rules of the Wordle game and become an efficient player. Keep in mind that cheating at Wordle is strongly discouraged. Where would be the fun in that?! Remember, the world's best Scrabble players go through great efforts to memorize huge lists of unusual words. There's a reason that computers aren't permitted at the competitions!

The Author

Mike Schilli works as a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Each month in his column, which has been running since 1997, he researches practical applications of various programming languages. If you email him at mailto:mschilli@perlmeister.com he will gladly answer any questions.