Hatin' on Puzzles

First things first. Although I love to play games of all kinds, I have to admit that I’m not a big solitary game player. What makes most games fun to me is the human element brought on by social interaction. Computer Risk against computer players is nothing compared to the original board game with real people where you can intimidate, form alliances, backstab, hold grudges, get revenge, and do all those wonderful things that humanity is known for.

In my day (and often late night!) job as computer book author, I’ve become immersed in the world of Head First, which employs several teaching techniques that fall within the realm of solitary games. One particular Head First element that has been debated a bit internally is crossword puzzles. In my first Head First book, Head First JavaScript, the decision was made to include a crossword puzzle at the end of every chapter to help reinforce learning. In my current Head First book, Head First PHP & MySQL, we deliberately decided to throttle back the crosswords a little, using them in maybe half of the chapters. Co-author Lynn Beighley, editor Sanders Kleinfeld, and I had several discussions about the pros and cons of crossword puzzles, and if they really offer much in the way of promoting learning or adding entertainment value. The question remains unanswered, although we are certainly aware that many Head First readers do enjoy the puzzles in other books.

This leads up to an article I just stumbled across that presents a scathing criticism of crossword puzzles and the people who regularly work them. Although the article is quite entertaining, I have to defend puzzlers to some degree, if for no other reason because of the sheer amount of venom in the article. The main premise of the article is this: puzzles are a stupid waste of time, and you should be reading instead. There’s certainly a grain of truth there, especially in a sense that the article’s author has observed people ignoring legitimate news in newspapers and going straight for the puzzles. Sudoku puzzles are also lumped in there with crossword puzzles as monumental time wasting intellect killers.

I draw two questions from the article. First, is the world really divided between people who love solitary puzzles and people who hate them? Second, and more important to me, does everything truly have to be loved or hated? I worry that the keyboard warrior culture of online discourse has eliminated shades of gray. Could it be possible that perhaps people have varying degrees of like/dislike for such puzzles? Is such a relatively benign topic a metaphor for how we handle larger, more important issues? If puzzles garner three online pages of jetfueled anger, what hope do we have of meeting halfway on truly important issues?

Back to Head First, we fortunately decided not to look at the audience of our books as split evenly between fools and geniuses. And even though we’re still trying to work out exactly where interactive puzzles fit into the cognitive learning picture, we know that no matter what we come up with, some will love it and at least a few will hate it. Such is life.