Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 12:24:14 05/28/02
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On May 28, 2002 at 14:47:17, K. Burcham wrote: > > >I have been curious about what motivates chess programmers. What do they really >want from their creation? > >1. Money Not gonna happen. The best chess programmers in the world are not millionaires. If they turned their talents to other fields, they could easily make a heck of a lot more money. >2. Number one on SSDF list Probably a goal of most chess programmers, but not a driving force. >3. To Win most games against human GM Probably a goal of most chess programmers, but not a driving force. This is something that Robert Hyatt particularly enjoys, I think. >4. To gain more Fans Probably a goal of most chess programmers, but not a driving force. >5. To be looked at as number one programmer I doubt if anyone cares much about this. Probably, most people cannot even name the programmers of the top ten chess programs. I suspect that .001% of the US population or less knows who wrote Chess Tiger or Fritz. In fact, I suspect that there are less than 10,000 people in the whole US who know who programmed Deep Blue (except generically "IBM"). >6. Attention & fame Probably a goal of some chess programmers, but not a driving force. There are better ways to attain these, if that is what people are after. They will certainly be dissapointed if that is their goal. My opinion -- of the top ten chess programmers in the world, most of them post here. None of them are famous and much of the attention that they get is negative. >7. Only to beat their last version Everyone wants to do this, but it has very little connection with chess programming. >8. could care less about any of the above---just a casual hobby Nobody who tries to write a chess program can be casual about it. 9. People write chess programs because it is a terrific challenge. 10. People write chess programs because it is great fun to compete against other chess engines. 11. People write chess engines because chess itself is inspiring 12. People write chess engines because it is interesting to write a machine algorithm that can out-perform the one who wrote it. 13. People write chess engines because it pushes the envelope of programmming technology. Search theory, AI, all sorts of wonderul tricks. 14. People write chess engines because they want to find out if they can do it. 15. People write chess engines because there is a rich literature available in postscript/PDF format from universities and other sources and it is exciting reading. 16. People write chess engines because of exciting results like the Deep Blue match verses Kasparov. For me, none of the reasons you listed had any real importance. It is an exploration for me. I want to try things that nobody has tried yet. I want to come up with algorithms and techniques that have not been invented or implemented. I want to discover algorithms in the literature that are seemingly unrelated but that have direct application to chess. Mostly, I just want to have some fun at it. I have no illusions whatsoever about making money. I can make lots of money doing regular programming for companies that need my assistance. I don't care if I ever get on the SSDF list or get fans or any of that stuff. For me, it is an intellectual exercise that stretches the limits of my brain.
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