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Subject: Re: UCI (=universal chess interface)

Author: Stefan Meyer-Kahlen

Date: 01:55:12 11/29/00

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On November 29, 2000 at 04:05:43, Vladimir Sokolov wrote:

>On November 29, 2000 at 02:45:34, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen wrote:
>
>>On November 28, 2000 at 15:34:51, Edward Screven wrote:
>>
>>>i think your protocol has a lot to recommend it.  in particular i
>>>like having search separated from play, having clock information
>>>made available as part of the "go" command, and having engine
>>>specific options exposed through the GUI.  but i have one question
>>>and one objection.
>>>
>>>question: why is "position" a separate command, and not an argument
>>>to "go".  as far as i can tell, there's nothing an engine is
>>>supposed to do with a position other than search it, and the
>>>engine isn't supposed to search until it receives a "go".  so
>>>why not take the stateless nature of the protocol further and
>>>make the position information part of "go"?
>>
>>Yes, this was one point we also thought about as there will always be a
>>"position" command before a "go" command. We decided to keep it seperated as
>>both commands can be quite long.
>>
>>>objection: i strongly dislike the way pondering is supposed to work.
>>>i don't mind having a command that says "start pondering now", but
>>>the assumptions built into the protocol - that it is always a search
>>>based on an opponent move guess computed as a side affect of a
>>>previous search - are too limiting.  what about the first move out
>>>of book?  what if no guess move is immediately available because
>>>the previous search ended in a fail-high?  in these cases my engine
>>>does a short search to guess at the opponent move, but it doesn't do
>>>that until it is time to start pondering.  i don't see how to
>>>fit this into the uci protocol.
>>
>>You are right, but the engine can take the last move sent in a "go ponder"
>>command as a suggestion on what to do. It can ponder or do anything it likes, it
>>only has to execute that particular move after the "ponderhit" command.
>>
>>This is eqivalent to what we are doing if you take the move as a suggestion. see
>>above.
>>
>>Thanks for your comments.
>>
>>  Stefan
>
>
>
>If UCI is really an equivalent to Winboard it is freely downloadable,
>or is it more exactly a protocol that functions like an adapter between engine
>and GUI ?

It's a protocol.

> Different Gui's, that can be modified by the user, can be built to
>function with the protocol, but the Gui of Shredder 5 is not downloadable,
>consequently the graphical user interface of Shredder 5 is not freely available.

right.

Stefan




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