Gavin Kistner <gavin / refinery.com> wrote:

> I've finally been able to discover the much-sought-after link between  
> kittens and rabies! (My previous code was unable to find this chain  
> after leaving it for about half an hour.)

An interesting chain to stress-test your algorithms is "sahara" <->  
"cloudy" (46 links)
(in my dictionary at least)

$ time ruby word_chains.rb sahara cloudy
sahara
samara
tamara
tamera
tamers
tapers
capers
caters
waters
wavers
savers
severs
levers
levees
levies
bevies
belies
belied
belted
bolted
boated
coated
crated
craned
cranes
cranks
cracks
crocks
croaks
creaks
creeks
creels
cruels
cruets
crusts
crests
chests
cheats
cleats
bleats
bloats
floats
flouts
clouts
clouds
cloudy

real  0m28.984s
user  0m9.243s
sys   0m0.755s