The Prime Minister's New Sudoku

Two days ago at about 6pm, Singapore's current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (who, for the purpose of brevity, will in this blogpost be referred to as LHL) posted the following on Facebook.

The Sudoku
solver

It referenced a speech he made on 20th April this year, a speech which I admittedly made no effort to listen to because up till then, I hadn't the faintest clue that this dude might say anything I would find worth listening to.

But man, was I wrong.

In his speech, LHL declared his intent to promote Information Technology. He accepted - nay, embraced - the changes that this age has foisted upon us, and the positive differences it has made in our lives. There's too many things cool about his speech and I don't want to regurgitate it all here, so follow this link for the transcript.

And if that wasn't awesome enough, he topped it off by posting a Sudoku solver he had written in C++ some years ago. I'll admit it - I was legit impressed.

Was I all that surprised though? Not really. It's common knowledge that our PM is a bit of a math prodigy. And while it would be a fallacy to say that all good programmers are also great mathematicians or vice versa, the two disciplines are somewhat interlinked. Math is about logic. So is programming.

I've looked at C++ program. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much just basic constructs, arrays and loops. Solid but not spectacular. As for the logic, I'm not about to try and dissect that. Math's not my thing. Sudoku, for Christ's sake.

The reaction has ranged from derision... 

"A mathematician leading a country. No wonder everyone is treated like a digit, and the country lost its soul."

"Sorry, not high enough for my standard"

...to outright sycophantic.

"I think that u are the only prime minister on our planet who can code as a truly professional programmer"

"There you have it, a Prime Minister who can write codes! You need a problem solver in every chaotic situation, now I see why Singapore progresses."

We probably need to hold our horses here. While I agree that this little display puts the PM's IQ at above average, this has little or nothing to do with how he's run the country so far, or his ability to do so. I mean, math is math. Leadership is leadership.

But still! I knew our PM was good at numbers. Just didn't know he could program too.

It figures, eh?
T___T