Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: A new chess program on the horizon?

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 13:17:17 11/16/01

Go up one level in this thread


On November 16, 2001 at 15:29:19, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
[snip]
>Hmm, maybe it was possible a century ago for someone to design an entire car
>from the ground up, but these days, if someone "designs" a car by himself, it's
>kind of like saying that Gateway "designs" computers. They buy a dozen or two
>parts from various sources, assemble them, and put a fancy exterior on the
>result. This is not what I meant, and is not analogous to the computer chess
>world. (You can not take a move generator from Program A and just drop it into
>Program B to "soup it up.")
>
>I believe that there is enough complexity in chess programs that if you get
>several good chess programmers to make a new one, they can specialize on
>different parts of the program and come up with something better than any one
>programmer could.

This is actually quite a workable approach.  But it would require truly
excellent design and truly excellent project management.
I think something as complex as a chess program being developed by a large team
would really force the OO issue.  If every person had to understand the
internals of every part of every system, it is doomed to failure.  But if the
operations can be abstracted and the interfaces clearly specified, it would be
possible to do very well, I think.

>Of course, this is just speculation, but so far it hasn't been disproven.

It would be an intersting experiment.  I think it would fail if C were used, and
succeed if C++ were used.  Assuming all the important coordination and modelling
activities all go perfectly.
;-)

Just because it has never been done before, does not mean that it can't be done.



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.