Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 13:09:59 06/01/00
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On June 01, 2000 at 10:31:02, blass uri wrote: [snip] >The point is not personal attack against you but that I do not like the fact >that people copy things from crafty and call it their program. > >I understand that in this case probably the part copied from crafty is very >small but I think that copying nothing is better. > >You may have more bugs but I believe that you will learn more about programming >by copying nothing. > >I apologize if I am wrong and you did the same mistake independently not because >of copying. I think that the obvious crafty clones (where the cloner tried to hide it) were awful shams. But to examine an algorithm and transfer it to your program is not a bad thing. Very likely, the one who copied it did understand exactly what was going on. But, just like the original programmer, they were thinking about what happens when things *go right* rather than when things go wrong. After careful scrutiny, the defect was found to the benefit of both chess systems. I do agree with you that "cut and paste" chess programming will not make you a good chess programmer and your program will not improve in the same way as people who understand the fundamental algorithms. In the final analysis, every chess program borrows from the ideas of others. Anyone who claims to write a top ten chess program and has never read the work of others is a liar. On the other, other hand, plaguarism is plauguarism. The same sort of standards that apply to literary work apply also to programming. But you will find in honest programs that credit is given where credit is due for learning techniques from the work of other people. Exactly where the line is drawn from "copying someone's program" verses "modifying your own program" is a difficult line to draw precisely and probably mostly up to the conscience of the one transferring the information. At some point, it will clearly become a case of plaguarism if you are just stealing someone else's ideas.
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