Solvers are useful for confirming that a puzzle you've recieved or generated is solvable. The meditative process can really go sideways when there is no solution for you to stumble upon.

Puzzles in commercial collections don't usually have that problem, but those from other sources sometimes do.

Solvers also make for a nice craft exercise, as here. Simple but not trivial, you can approach them in a lot of different ways and thereby work through different techniques or constraints you mean to explore.

> Puzzles in commercial collections don't usually have that problem,

I would argue that puzzles in commercial collections are more likely to have that problem than ones made freely available by hobbyists, as commercial enterprises inevitably cut corners on things like labour costs for an actual human setter.

I have seen dozens of commercial puzzle games and applications that do not make any attempt to verify the (auto-generated) puzzles as solvable, but I don't think I've ever had the same problem on a site like LMD.

I guess I'm the opposite. After doing a couple of sudoku many years ago my thought was "Hey, I could just automate this" and started thinking of algorithms.

Optimising solutions is the meditative exercise for me.

I enjoy running simulation after simulation after simulation, studying possible outcomes and optimising everything. Everyone is different :)

I find that sodoku is not a math or even a logic puzzle, but rather an epistemology puzzle. Lots of how we know/how much we know, and if you get into speed with some failure tolerance through estimating probability it adds even more thought provoking rabbit holes.

Optimising a Sudoku solver can be seen as a different puzzle entirely and not as a mode of playing Sudoku.

Interesting position that was not expressed before. However please note that the same could be said about writing a solver.

Wouldn't it be more productive/rewarding to instead engage with comments I do like?

Only you can say what's best for you.

If have to ask: What's rewarding about only having your viewpoint reinforced?

Just under this submission I have upvoted a handful of comments with which I disagreed, mainly because of its replies.

Where are you getting the viewpoints thing from?

Downvotes and upvotes work together to manage the visibility of posts that align with the community's tastes.

While I myself found an opportunity to reply to the GP and didn't down vote them, their comment only engaged with the article in a shallow way and only then, seemingly, to just dismiss the concept of solver altogether.

It wasn't a offensive comment, but it didn't really contribute to the site in the way many people digging into deep technical walkthroughs like this expect to see.

Some downvotes weren't guaranteed, but they're not surprising and they're probably helping new readers stay engaged with more topical and technical alternatives.

It's not the end of the world to get a few downvotes, and it's almost never personal. It certainly isn't here.

Aside: Downvotes on HN can be an expression of age related, self-righteous sniper pique; Opinions on what contributes to a conversation can be all over the place and are entirely subject to biases, which can be interesting (I guess). Doesn't really matter, and Hail Satan anyway. Also "Q for Mortals" is an interesting book.

A few anonymous downvotes are what qualifies as pitchforks these days?