Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 22:30:02 06/12/02
Go up one level in this thread
On June 12, 2002 at 12:26:33, Uri Blass wrote:
>On June 12, 2002 at 12:00:37, Marc van Hal wrote:
>
>>On June 11, 2002 at 12:36:41, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>
>>>On June 11, 2002 at 01:42:10, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>On June 10, 2002 at 22:29:44, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On June 10, 2002 at 15:28:14, Rajen Gupta wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>i have read somewhere (i think it was hinted in one of the interviews which
>>>>>>frank morsch gave to one of the indian newspapers)that at any given time, there
>>>>>>are several different versions of fritz being developed:- the inference being
>>>>>>that and the one that is actually released is not necessarily the strongest one;
>>>>>>its the one that is just strong enough.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>frank morsch apparently has one ready whenever a new upstart arrives on the
>>>>>>scene.i wont be surprised if there is no new fritz till something overtakes the
>>>>>>current version.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>rajen
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>It does not make sense.
>>>>>
>>>>>Look at the small margin between Fritz and the program just behind it (Tiger) on
>>>>>the SSDF.
>>>>>
>>>>>Why would Frans take the risk of publishing an engine that might fail to achieve
>>>>>the first place on the SSDF if he has something better?
>>>>
>>>>Maybe he does not know which engine is the best.
>>>>
>>>>The only way to be sure that engine A is better than engine B is by games.
>>>>You can always have other tests in order to guess but they are only an estimate.
>>>>
>>>>I know that you say that you do not use games against other opponents but I
>>>>think that it is a mistake.
>>>>
>>>>The fact that you probably have some test that usually gives
>>>>the same results as games is a good reason to use that test for testing one
>>>>change but when you decide to release a new version the only way to be sure that
>>>>it is better is by a lot of games(unless the change is only doing tiger faster).
>>>>
>>>>Uri
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>In order to have a top chess program you must have a method to decide if a
>>>change is an improvement or not. One of the requirements of this method is that
>>>you must be able to get a result in a short period of time (preferably less than
>>>4 days in the most difficult cases).
>>>
>>>There are many little changes to test before you get a version significantly
>>>stronger than your last release.
>>>
>>>It is not practical to let people test several versions and decide for you
>>>because you can't rely on results you have not controlled yourself (there are
>>>too many possibilities of inconsistencies even in the experiments you set up
>>>yourself) and because these people would have to play a lot of games under
>>>equivalent conditions in order to get statistical relevance (which you seldomly
>>>get, because you cannot ask people to play 500 games in a row).
>>>
>>>I cannot believe that a serious chess programmer would use such a lousy
>>>selection method.
>>>
>>>Testers feedback is very valuable to spot problems or lacks in the program's
>>>knowledge, bugs, and more generally good advices on general directions to work
>>>on.
>>>
>>>Testers feedback is used to get quality data, human advice and creativity, you
>>>generally cannot use it to get a quantity of statistically relevant data.
>>>
>>>The final decision about what is an improvement and what is not must be taken by
>>>the programmer himself, with a cold, scientifically controlled, objective, test
>>>method.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Christophe
>>
>>Chess is not science yet!
>>You have some difeculty's from both sides
>>
>>a) the programmer does not have much chess knowledge.
>>And he is the one who makes the decisions about the changes.
>>
>
>I think that having much chess knowledge is not the important thing for chess
>programmers.
>
>It is more important to know to explain the knowledge that you have to the
>computer.
>
>I think that no programmer is close to be perfect in that task.
>The important thing is to do the right observations and explain them to the
>computer and not to have a lot of chess knowledge.
>
>I also think that chess knowledge is something that
>you need to find defintions for it by yourself.
>
>There are a lot of grandmasters who have not clear definition of the knowledge
>that they have.
>
>Programmers also usually do not try to teach programs everything that they
>know(for example they do not try to teach the programs fortress positions
>inspite of the fact that they know about them).
>
>Uri
Exactly Uri, very much to the point.
Christophe
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