Today's crossword puzzles are easily created electronically in any of a dozen puzzle-making sites. Ashworth-Smith builds his puzzles within seconds electronically.
@blanchas@telus. -- Clearly you know nothing about constructing software. I do -- I've used it -- and it can't make a decent puzzle, let alone a great puzzle.
The wordlists contain thousands (or more) of obscure terms -- for ex., Latin terms from all scientific fields -- and those appear in abundance when you hit the autofill command.
In the future, software might -- *might* -- be able to create a great puzzle, but at this time it can't. To say that MAS or any constructor builds "puzzles within seconds electronically" is insulting and probably libelous. And it's also a silly thing to say, because if all or most constructors relied on a program, then you'd see uniformity in the fill in puzzles, but you don't -- and that's because every constructor has certain preferences and certain taboos (e.g., some won't use roman numerals under any circumstances; some won't use partials; etc.).
Constructing is a time-consuming and generally poorly paid endeavor; people do it because they love doing it.
By the way, you can download a free, limited-function version of CrossFire; create a grid (just copy one from any 15x15 puzzle) and hit autofill, and you'll see what happens.
I think it's time we were treated to some more quad stacks.
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