Thursday, May 7, 2009

Azure Sudoku now on CodePlex


Azure Sudoku is now available on CodePlex. This is an Azure-hosted Silverlight implementation of the popular game Sudoku. Various Hawaiian backgrounds accompany each new game.

The significance of this project isn't entertainment. It combines Azure, Silverlight, and WCF in the same solution--something that takes a lot of work (and work-arounds) to get right. If you're attempting to combine all 3 technologies for the first time, this project may be helpful to look at and will hopefully save you some of the headscratching I went through.





I could have implemented Azure Sudoku without the WCF service, but since this is meant to be a reference project I wanted to include WCF for an important reason: Silverlight can't directly access Azure's RESTful services. That means when you work on Azure-hosted Silverlight solutions the only way you'll be able to make use of cloud storage and other Azure services is if your solution contains a WCF service that Silverlight can go through to get to Azure services.

While we're on the subject of Sudoku, you may be surprised to learn that it isn't a Japanese invention. The game originally known as "Number Place" first appeared in the U.S. in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games magazine in 1979 but didn't command a lot of attention. It made its way to Japan at some point where it became a major hit, and the rest is history. It's really Howard Garns of Indianapolis we have to thank for Sudoku. Thanks Howard!

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