Author: Pete Galati
Date: 00:27:41 08/05/00
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On August 04, 2000 at 12:56:38, Adrien Regimbald wrote: >Hi, > >>I don't know why there aren't more programs that are free and do Winboard's job, >>that's always confused me. If you put out a program that did nothing but acted >>as an interface like Winboard, and didn't even have the ability to play games >>online, there would still be allot of people who'd be glad to use it. Because >>as good as Winboard is, you can get tired of looking at it after a while when >>you use Winboard engines often enough. > > >I think the answer here is very simple: writing a high quality, stable, and >fully featured graphical interface of any sort is a MAJOR pain in the ass. I >think that programmers in general don't like this task, and in particular most >programmers interested in chess would be more inclined to have some fun and >write an engine. > >Combine the fact that writing such an interface would be annoying with the fact >that there would be no financial renumeration for the task since you want it to >be free, I don't find it the least bit surprising that there aren't more choices >available. Most of the free programs you will find for the DL are done by >people who enjoyed writing that program as a hobby, something to do in their >spare time. Expecting someone to do something they don't like during their >spare time is a bit silly. > >What you're asking is sort of like this: >Why don't more gardners grow this cool plant I would really like to see that >takes long tedious hours of constant work to grow, isn't terribly interesting to >watch grow, and to top it all off doesn't produce anything of value. > >Just look at chess interfaces to ICSes - there are many many many less of these >than there are chess programs, and the programs that _do_ exist for free tend to >lose interest from their authors quite quickly. AFAIK, WinBoard is the _ONLY_ >really good free ICS interface that has been around for a long time that is >still being supported by the author.. Why? Because as I said, writing >graphical interfaces is a pain in the ass! :P > >Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a new choice in this field as well .. I'm >just saying there are reasons for there not being others, and it's not very >likely that there will be others any time soon. > > >Regards, >Adrien. I think you're right about everything you talk about. And actually, Winboard is a very nice interface, and if that's the one we're stuck using, then we're very lucky really. Pete
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