Author: Anthony Cozzie
Date: 13:28:14 11/16/02
Go up one level in this thread
On November 16, 2002 at 13:16:33, Bob Durrett wrote: >On November 16, 2002 at 12:29:35, Peter Skinner wrote: > >>On November 16, 2002 at 11:45:27, Bob Durrett wrote: >> >>> >>>I'm Confused. C, C++, C#. Which to Use? >>> >>>I have an old Visual C++ compiler which I purchased many ago. But bulletins >>>posted here seem to favor C, as opposed to C++ as if C is better than C++ for >>>chess engine programming. >>> >>>Still trying to find the best C compiler to use for chess engine design on my >>>Compaq 1 GHz 1GB RAM single-processor PC. >>> >>>Tried to download one but got error message saying NO! >>> >>>Yahoo! seems to find C++ compilers but not C compilers. >>> >>>Sorry for sounding like a child. : ( >>> >>>Bob D. >> >>About 2 to 3 years ago I wanted to write a program as well. Since I had no clue >>where to start I based my engine off the GNUChess 4 source. I was learning C the >>same time so it was nice to have a code to start off of. >> >>After 3 years I would never try to start from scratch. There are two main >>reasons: >> >>1. I am not a very skilled programmer. I can implement things, but I ask a >>million questions like yourself, and there is nothing wrong with that. People >>here are great with answering questions. The answers I have recieved through >>this board and the Crafty mailing list have helped immensely. >> >>2. Time. I don't have much time to program. Starting an engine from scratch >>takes an incrdible amount of time. I would suggest that you look at some sources >>to understand the different structures that Gerbil, Crafty, GnuChess anything >>that has published source code. That helped me quite a bit. Those authors who >>_have_ put the time in to start from scratch give the code out for people to >>learn from and I am grateful. >> >>Personally if you want to write an engine, I would start in C. Most compiler >>that are for C++ are C complilers anyway. I prefer the Visual Studio from MS as >>the MSDN library has some great code examples to look at. >> >>That's my two cents. >> >>Peter. > >Thanks. The Microsoft Visual Studio's System Requirements seem to exclude >Windows 98, which is what I have. Guess I'll have to buy a new $5000 chess >computer. Convincing my wife is going to be a problem. I wonder if Visual >Studio will run on a dual or quad processor machine? Anyway, I'm just joking. >Maybe I don't need Visual Studio today after all. A pity, though. But . . . so >be it. > >Bob D. My experience: I became interested in chess at about 11th grade, which was the same time I learned to program in C. I of course tried to write a program to play chess. Result: zip. I tried again during my freshman year of college. Result: a move generator capable of generating 10,000 moves/second. Went back to college. After my sophmore year, I tried again. This time I actually read up on what other people, and I wrote an engine that actually did play chess (rating about 1600). I actually precomputed stuff for the move generation, and did some other things. Unfortunately I had massive transposition table and quiescence search bugs. Finally, after my junior year I started from scratch (again, sigh) using bitboards. I wrote a static exchange evaluator, which did wonders for my Q search. Result: zappa. Even during zappa's creation, I have rewritten parts from scratch (3 tries at the move generator, for example). The point is, writing a chess engine is *hard*. Writing a chess engine without knowing how to program in some language is nearly impossible. I would recommend you take a C programming class (learn the basics of syntax) and a 2nd semester freshman CS class (learn basic algorithms and datastructures, approaches, and get a general idea of "what is a good program, and what is a bad program"). You are like a man trying to play hockey without knowing how to skate. Basics Basics Basics :)
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