Author: Tina Long
Date: 16:42:13 11/04/01
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On November 04, 2001 at 14:10:18, Jeroen van Dorp wrote: >I read somewhere that Johan de Koning's interest had shifted from chess >programming to other games - that might be a bit of an explanation. > >J. Hence the term "He's done a Wittington." Although that term has so many possible meanings I immediatly withdraw it. It appears to me as a long term watcher/co-buyer of Chess programs that the Pareto principal (80% of the job takes 20% of the effort, and the last 20%...(never gets finished)) particularly applies to Chess Programmers. They "hit a wall" where they've created a great chess engine, and any overall strength improvement can only be achieved in very tiny doses. Add to that the Impossibility of actually measuring strength, so you can't be sure a modification does actually help, and the pleasure and achievement must be hard to come by. Throw in some vigerous critism eg "Don't pay DeKoening any more currency..." and the temptation to give chess programming a rest & to explore other Games must be great. I like to think of them as great competitors retiring from the competion: Lang, the Kittingers, Wittington, perhaps DeKoening... It's good to have the old stalwarts still here: Schroder, Hyatt, Moreland etc. And there is always fresh new blood coming through. Gees, even the ICCA now put out the ICGA Journal. Tina Long,
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