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Subject: Re: Open source doesn't work

Author: Georg v. Zimmermann

Date: 12:40:18 11/08/01

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On November 08, 2001 at 14:19:32, Ron Murawski wrote:

>
>>I make most of the bug reports for Beowulf myself.  However, because it's open
>>source then people like Ron Murawski, who want to write their own program, but
>>don't particularly feel like learning the coding required for the engine, can
>>just get straight down to writing the eval() function.  After all, that's the
>>most fun bit, right?
>>
>
>Colin,
>
>Without the Beowulf open source project, the Horizon chess engine would not
>exist. I am riding on your back and Dann Corbit's and I will be forever grateful
>that you have made the Beowulf codebase public.
>
>What is great about open source code is its publicness. It is allowing me to go
>inside a clearly-written, working chess engine and I'm slowly learning how it
>all works. It's allowed me to insert a replacement evaluator and call it "my"
>program. So, open source has been good for me.
>
>I have pointed out several important evaluation errors in Beowulf and passed
>them on to you. I've also done beta-testing and reported general problems as
>well. Also, I have made suggestions about the evaluation of passed pawns and you
>have coded my ideas. So, open source has been good for you as well.
>
>I suspect that the friendly rivalry of "Who's evaluator is better?" is spurring
>us both along. The latest Beowulf is light-years better than its previous
>version and I hope to do the same with my own evaluator.
>
>When no one is trying to make a profit and everyone remains friends, then open
>source can succeed extremely well.
>
>Best regards,
>Ron
>
>PS: You're right, Colin: Writing the eval *is* the most fun thing!

That sounds great! When I started I used to think eval() was most important.
Then at some point I swicthed to the search, where then extensions were the top
exiting thing. Then I realized you can only get that far with that, and improved
the razoring and most important move order. Then I tried some performance
improvement, which was easy cause the code was very slow. Only getting so far
since I suck at programming. Now I'd need to spend time on a testing
environment...

I wonder if anyone not starting from scratch has learned in a different order ?

Georg



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