There are algorithms where I think "Sure, with enough time and attention given to the problem, I might have thought of that." And then there are algorithms where I think "Oh, wow. That came from another planet. I would never have come up with that myself."
Agreed. Further, for most algorithms, I can read a high-level description of it and go "ohhh, I get it now", and go away and implement it myself without further information. HashLife is not one of those algorithms! While I grok the concept of it, I'm pretty lost on how I'd turn that into functional code. I'm sure I could figure it out with enough further reading, though.
It starts very good, but does this article have multiple pages? Clicking 2 or Next at the bottom shows "something went wrong. Please contact an administrator". Tried in firefox and chrome on android
Yeah, I implemented this in 2010 and the Dr. Dobbs article was essential. I even had the original C code and couldn’t figure it out without this article.
An interesting consequence of the HashLife algorithm is that when people design patterns in Conway's Game of Life they sometimes try to tailor them to the algorithm. The rule of thumb is that any repeated components should be laid out with spacings that are powers of two, and the period of any oscillations should be a power of two.
I had a lot of fun a few years ago playing with this algorithm. I ended up with a little site that has life in life and some fun zooming and panning gestures on mobile.
This one is definitely in the latter category.