Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 10:36:08 02/26/01
Go up one level in this thread
On February 26, 2001 at 11:38:09, Mogens Larsen wrote:
>On February 26, 2001 at 11:08:33, Ed Schröder wrote:
>
>>That has to be seen, you can not draw that conclusion.
>
>What conclusion?
>
>>I have given the example of adding new chess knowledge to the program
>>keeping in mind the current state of art of nowadays fast hardware.
>>
>>What if that "thought behind" (the fast hardware) is a WRONG approach?
>
>Wrong by what or who's standards?
>
>>I can not give you the answer, nobody can.
>
>I'm not looking for specific answers, but I do take offense to dubious opinions.
>
>>It is all so complicated and foggy, even after almost 20 years.
>
>Yes, I think it is very foggy indeed, which is why I prefer your example.
>
>In my mind Christophe's opinion is comparable to a "political" statement. With
>the purpose of elevating attributes that are associated with his program and
>degrading elements that are not. The result is simplistic and superficial IMO.
Superficial can be said of the person who is looking at things from the surface,
and that's exactly your case.
Personally I spend all my time deep inside the concepts I am talking about, and
I experiment with them everyday.
I am actually not trying to elevate attributes associated with my program. It's
the other way around.
I have the opinion that the best program will be the one which will perform the
best at any time controls, for the reasons I have given already and that you
failed to refute.
So I have worked in order to make my program perform equally good at all time
controls. It's a work in progress, I'm not pretending that I have succeded yet.
I have tried to explain why I believe this approach makes sense, and why I'm
skeptical about programs that are allegedly "better with faster hardware".
There is nothing political here. The basic idea of "dimishing returns" has been
studied and is still under scientific study at this time. I have tried to
explain in simple terms why, in my opinion, it happens. In two words it happens
because the number of moves in chess is somewhat limited, and because with
enough time even an average program is able to discard all the losing moves, and
will be left with the 2 or 3 playable moves. This explains why the difference
between strong and less strong programs is less and less obvious with faster
computers or longer time controls.
Notice that in my opinion the strongest programs are still the strongest, but
what happens is that it is more and more difficult to show it (the elo
difference is smaller, so a larger number of games is required). The trend is
that the weaker program gets closer and closer to the best one, but it never
becomes better with faster hardware or longer time controls.
You can have a different opinion. But instead of just trying to depreciate my
opinion ("you cannot they that", "it's not so simple", "it's a political
statement"), explain what your opinion is, and please give arguments to support
your point.
Christophe
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