Before you compare: what matters is that the illness is named correctly — and that a cure says what you see, what happens and what makes it fun.
🧩 The rounds, cracked
1. 🤒 «I wish for a variable that counts to ten and then prints something.» → 🔧 Too much HOW
Too much HOW. «Variable» and «prints» are words from inside the machine room. And what would you actually see? Nobody knows.
2. 🤒 «I wish for something cool.» → 🌫️ Too little WHAT
Too little WHAT. A thousand different programs are all «something cool». The agent has to guess — and it will guess something that is cool for somebody else.
3. 🤒 «Make a button element and give it a click handler so the picture changes.» → 🔧 Too much HOW
Too much HOW — badly. «Button element» and «click handler» are engineer words. You are allowed not to know them; the agent knows them for you.
4. 😊 «I wish for a snowman I can build: every click adds a snowball, and at three balls he gets a carrot nose and waves at me.» → 💚 Healthy — send it home
Healthy! See (a snowman), happens (click → a ball), fun (the nose and the wave). A good doctor also knows when to send a patient home — not every wish needs medicine.
5. 🤒 «I wish for a dinosaur quiz with ten questions, kept in a database, with a for-loop that checks the answers.» → 🔧 Too much HOW
Too much HOW — the sneaky kind. The start is healthy (a dinosaur quiz, ten questions), but «database» and «for-loop» crept in. Cure: cross out the building words — and say what happens when you answer right.
6. 🤒 «I wish for a game about my dog — but make it really good.» → 🌫️ Too little WHAT
Too little WHAT. «Really good» feels like information, but the agent cannot see it. What does your dog do in the game? What do you do? How do you win?
7. 💊 Patient «I wish for a quiz» needs medicine. Which one cures it? → «I wish for a quiz with five dog questions: right answers go ‹ding› and turn green, and at five out of five confetti rains.»
The third. The first only turned up the volume — still fog. The second swapped the fog for HOW: the patient caught a new illness in the hospital! Only the third says what you see, what happens and what is fun.
8. 💊 Patient «a variable that counts to ten» needs medicine. Which one cures it? → «I wish for a rocket that counts down from ten — every number flashes a new colour, and at zero it takes off with a whoosh.»
The rocket. The first still says HOW («while-loop»), the third is so foggy it could be anything. The rocket is the same counting — but now there is something to see and a reason to watch until zero.
The surprise patients
Two rounds catch almost everyone:
- 😊 The snowman was healthy. A good doctor does not prescribe medicine to everyone who walks in. If a wish says what you see, what happens and what is fun, send it home.
- 🦖 The dinosaur quiz had both. Half healthy, half HOW. Real wishes are often like that — the cure is not to start over, but to cross out the building words and keep the rest.
Healthy cures for every patient
✅ "I wish for a machine that invents silly animal names. I press a button and it puts two animals together — like 'Ele-guin' — and draws a wobbly picture of it." (cure for «something cool»)
✅ "I wish for a big button that says 'Surprise!'. Every time I press it, a different animal picture appears — and it never shows the same one twice in a row." (cure for «button element … click handler»)
✅ "I wish for a dog game: my dog runs through the park, I tap to make him jump over puddles, and every stick he catches is a point. Three puddles and he needs a bath — game over." (cure for «a game about my dog — but make it good»)
What testing the cure teaches
When you sent your cured quiz, the agent probably still had to choose a few things: the colours, the questions, what "wobble" looks like. That is fine — it is not fog, it is freedom. Fog is when it has to guess what the thing is. If you had to explain afterwards what kind of quiz you meant, that was fog; say that part in the wish next time.