How to handle non-distinct values

[philospher77]

Hello!

I have been working some logic puzzles on a different site, and they will have puzzles where some of the values in a category are not distinct. For example, a puzzle about breakfast might have coffee sizes as a category, with one large, 2 medium, and 2 small coffees. These always trip me up, since I know that a clue like "Joe had a small coffee" means that I can mark out the large and mediums, but I don't know which of the two small columns is "his". This can be important if you are also trying to match coffees to another category, like donut type. If I know that the two small coffees match to the maple bar and jelly donut, how do I know which of those goes to Joe and which goes to the other"small coffee" person? So... any advice from other people on how they deal with these kinds of puzzles?

[cosmicsweety]

I just pick one column for that and put his name on it. That way I don't get it mixed up with the other person's column. And let's say Joe takes column 1 for the small coffee, then whatever row shows the coffees, the first row is also Joe's.

[Frungi]

If the site doesn’t treat the two smalls interchangeably, then the puzzle is broken. Otherwise, just pick one. From your description, it sounds like this puzzle has multiple valid solutions, if Joe could have either the maple bar or the jelly donut without contradicting anything.