Author: Thorsten Czub
Date: 08:52:35 02/19/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 19, 2000 at 10:43:45, KarinsDad wrote: >On February 19, 2000 at 02:54:57, Thorsten Czub wrote: >I agree that there are reasons, but I do not believe in excuses. I have seen a >LOT of excuses from one specific programmer (who I will not mention, but it is >not CW) every time his program loses an event (for the last few years). It tends >to get old. Either a program is strong regardless of little nit issues such as >processor or bugs, or it is not. The programs that consistently win the >tournaments are the ones with the better implementations, few bugs and can run >well on a variety of platforms. i have different ideas about it. i am doing this for a long time. some programs make big waves. e.g. mchess. i remember the horrible mchess version that participated 1993 in munich because i operated it on a fast machine. berthold seifriz will also remember this very good. this version was weak. but i am convinced mchess8 is a very good program i like to see playing. same counts for diep. this program also goes up and down concerning versions. same counts for cstal since chris makes many changes from version to version. some programmers change much, others less. i don't see that this shows how genius somebody is. it only shows how different they work IMO. >From my point of view, it is just like human chess playing. If a human is sick >or jet lagged, nobody says "you cannot really count those games for playing >strength". Of course you can. FIDE does it all of the time. It is part of the >OVERALL environment that people get sick or tired. It is part of the OVERALL >environment that programs have software bugs or hardware issues. right. >The concept of placing programs in a lab (or a serious individually controlled >tournament) and finding out optimal results and then saying that any results not >acquired within such a sterile and controlled environment are not scientific or >not worthwhile or not indicative of true playing strength (or whatever) ignores >the realities of the real world (to me). often when you HAVE a good program version, the programmer comes with a "latest" version that is "best". i remember e.g. marty hirsch using such a version in paris. it showed this latest version was not so good. as they found out later. when i have a good version, i should not try to risk the good result with changing into another not experienced version. >So, everytime you read a statement from a programmer about a bug preventing the >program from winning a game or tournament, your response should be "So what?". nononono. i remember e.g. Pconners having a serious bug in paderborn. the year before Pconners was really good. but than there was a serious bug. i do believe the programmers. why shouldn't i ? they really have from time to time new ideas, new algo's and try out. and in the process there is a tournament. when they participate and later found out the new idea did not work, or a bug was in the new code, than it's ok for me. of course, when somebody is always weak, the "bug" could be an excuse. on the other hand: what do you do with a lousy programmer producing many bugs :-)) >It's all part of the game. No excuses. Just results. "Why" does not matter. The >why is extremely interesting (and yes, it is often fun to read about it), but >irrelevant. The what (i.e. the result) is the relevant piece. WHY does not matter ? ahem. i guess we will never agree about this. the why is never irrelevant. it is the main question. anywhere, anytime. the target, the destination is not interesting. not important. it is the way to it. thats life. life is NOT to win. life is about to go. about the how and why. the result is unimportant IMO. sorry. different point of views. >KarinsDad :)
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