Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 13:35:54 05/19/98
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>Posted by Don Dailey on May 19, 1998 at 14:26:48: >Hi Ed, Hi Don, Hope you don't mind I answer with some text of my home page so now and then. The complete Q&A can be found on my home page. >This sounds exciting to me. My main comment is that I don't see >Fritz on the list. I have been pretty much skipping over the >"Fritz sucks" postings but seem to remember there is a problem >with the autotester. Is that why Fritz is not on the list? Q: Why is Fritz not involved in the CCL competition? A: We don't have the Fritz version that supports auto232. It will be our pleasure to include Fritz in the CCL competition when we have an auto232 compatible Fritz. >However without Fritz (whether Fritz is really best or not), the >results will be much less meaningful "program X won the CCL >league championship BUT..." I hope this doesn't come across >as "we had our own championship and didn't invite Fritz." I think a participating Fritz will make CCL more attractive but that's up to Chessbase and not up to me. >Also you mentioned exactly equal hardware to make things "fair." >But I consider this actually unfair. For instance, I cannot see >a 64 bit program (like Crafty, Cilkchess or Dark Thought) being able >to compete "fairly" being forced to use 32 bit technology which >will soon die, especially when the next generation intels arrive. >Even if your program runs on your specified hardware, it may not >be optimal for certain ones, do you consider this good? In my >humble opinion it supports only a certain way of writing a chess >program and discourages others. Well, I don't have a hardware store :) so I have to make some choices. So I agree programs like yours are being punished for not being in the 95% area of the Pentium family. But this is really a problem which can not be solved, I for instance never complained that SSDF don't test Rebel on AMD because Rebel does much better on AMD then on Intel chips. Q: What about good hardware? A: We strive to play the CCL competition on the best available hardware currently available. The very first games (50 in total) were played on 4 identical Pentium PRO 200 Mhz machines (of our own) with 32 Mb. Now matches are played on 4 identical Pentium-II 266 Mhz machines (also of our own) with 64 Mb which is certainly an improvement and a kind of standard machine today. However it's our goal to play the CCL competition on the newest and fastest Pc's available. Sponsor requests for that are already gone out and are taken into consideration by several leading hardware companies. >You did not specify the Operating system either, but I will assume >this will be another constraint we must conform to. The idea >of using a specific protocol (auto-232) is an excellent idea and >in my opinion this is something each program really should conform >to. DOS and Windows for the moment. >This (perhaps overly critical) post is not meant to discourage >this competition. I think it's a great idea in fact because it >targets the platform and OS most of us use. Since I much >prefer Unix/Linux and better hardware than Pentiums, I may not be >completely objective about this issue. On the other hand I >expect to get a thousand hate mail responses saying how important >it is to conform to the microsoft/intel view of the world. There >will be no war because I will not respond. I will point out >in advance however, that I definitely DO see the value of standards >and conformity as well as the limitations. I'm not a "microsoft sucks" >guy either, this is an important and very reasonable platform, it's >just not the one I choose to embrace nor is it the only one other >people use. Why exclude the rest of the world? But I see it would >be a logistical nightmare to try and support the rest of the world >too. Cilkchess is very welcome to participate and I will give you all the support you need to run Cilkchess optimized but you need to help me too and Cilkchess should be general available. >For what it's worth, my idea of a fair competition (to replace SSDF?) >is the following general plan: >. Testing to be performed by objective party, chess program authors > (or their companies) should not be involved in the actual testing, > although their input might be sought (open to all.) Agree, quoting my home page... The very first thing that will be improved is to move the CCL list to an independent company, institution or organization to ensure the creditability AND a continuation for years of this computer-computer competition. At the moment the CCL competition is running in the office of the Schroder BV, producer of Rebel. It's our first goal with the highest priority to move the CCL competition to an independent organization free from any commercial bindings with any of the involved participants. We will take 6 months for this process. If we do not manage in these 6 months to move the CCL list to an independent organization the CCL list will stop to exist. End of quote. - Ed - >. Standardize the interface (auto-232 for instance.) > >. Allow ANY hardware/software whatsoever, if it is available to > everyone. This means the program must be either commercial, or > downloadable by everyone. >. The author must specify the hardware platform to be run on. > The author can PROVIDE a platform if the testers do not have > it available. The testing organization would provide 2 or 3 > "standard" configurations that are popular. >. An entrant is a hardware/software combination. The same program > running on another platform is a different entity. >. Commercial entries clearly specified and purchased off the shelf. > Same for public domain versions. No special or secret versions. >. Testing methodology should be completely deterministic. There > should be no human decision making involved in pairing decisions. >. Testing software should forfeit games when time is exceeded, > just like in real tournaments. Unfinished games should also > be counted as forfeits if the fault is a particular program's. >. Programs should not be moved around or reset. If learning is > part of the program, it should start with a clear state, and > then allowed to continue unimpeded. >. All results to be posted (including time forfeits.) >I would think it would be in everyones best interest (except the >software companies) to include any public domain program like Crafty >or Gnuchess if the author(s) submits it and it's available to >everyone. For instance Cilkchess would not be testable unless I >made it public domain, and I would have to provide hardware if I >wanted the parallel version to be tested. >- Don
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