Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 18:36:30 12/10/01
Go up one level in this thread
On December 10, 2001 at 20:55:51, Carmelo Calzerano wrote: >On December 10, 2001 at 19:33:42, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: > >>On December 10, 2001 at 19:15:49, Carmelo Calzerano wrote: >> >>>"Crafty offers everyone a very clean starting point... The search and >>>quiescence code is reasonably straightforward, as is the evaluation >>>code. If you are interested in trying a new search extension, you can >>>be testing tomorrow, rather than next year..." >> >>[...] >> >>>Commercial chess programs code has to be understood only by the programmer >>>himself, which (apart from being the author) is usually far more skilled >>>in chess programming than people toying around with Crafty sources... >> >>It is my experience that when one wants to actually make a substantial >>change to Crafty (i.e. something more than changing some parameter here >>and there), you will find that it is not as clean as you might expect >>it to be. > > >I know you implemented the SE in Crafty, so I'm sure you know what are >you saying :-) > > >>Many parts require a working knowledge of bitboards, lots have hidden >>interdependencies, sometimes the comments in the code are just plain >>outdated, etc... > >Unfortunately, we don't have access to commercial program sources, >so cannot make a comparison :-) > >>Doing something _useful_ in Crafty requires extensive programming >>skills. Ever wondered why there are so few outside contributions in >>the Changelog? > >Agreed; but I bet that commercial chess programs have even less ;-) > >I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but in my opinion releasing an >open source program to be studied an modified by others brings to >different choices in balancing complexity and readability, thus >leaving less freedom to the programmer. >The main reason I don't release Leila sources (even if I feel I >should, since I learned almost everything I know about chess programming >studying other programmers work) is because I think it couldn't be >useful, due to its unreadability... >BTW, since you are one of the best known open-source programmers >around, I really would like to have your opinion about that. Suggestion: Release your sources if you want to. Don't release them if you don't want to. You might get some good suggestions. You might get some bad ones. I have offered both types to GCP (and to others). It's also possible that nobody will even bother to look at it, which is probably the worst outcome.
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