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Subject: Re: O(1) garbage

Author: Jesper Antonsson

Date: 13:01:05 05/17/01

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On May 16, 2001 at 18:12:04, David Rasmussen wrote:

>On May 16, 2001 at 18:00:22, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:
>
>>
>>Excuse me, I am not a expert on this, but I am very curious about
>>a phrase that I have seen in all this discussion. "Chess is O(1)"
>>Is not the notation O() applied to algorithms?

Yes, I should have said "(good) chess algorithms", but I was lazy,
obviously. :-)

>Yes.
>
>>Well, chess is not an algorithm, it is game. So, should not we talk about
>>that alpha/beta is O(whatever), Minimax is O(whatever) etc.?
>
>Yes.
>
>That is exactly the problem. Some people thinks that chess together with
>alpha-beta is an algorithm in itself. But it is not. The extra stuff that is
>added to alpha-beta for it to play chess, is just stuff to describe the input
>to alpha-beta, the gametree.

Nonsense. A chess program runs on a computer and terminates (in theory). Thus
the chess program is an algorithm.



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