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Subject: Re: Any idea's on how long it takes to learn C++, then create a chessmonster

Author: Derek Mauro

Date: 15:16:25 12/09/01

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On December 09, 2001 at 14:04:45, robert flesher wrote:

>Im interested in my free time creating a chess program, not a monster LOL but
>just one that know the rules , and plays poor 1600 > chess. Thanks in advance


It depends on how motivated you are.  Last summer I borrowed the AP Comp Sci
book from my school, and I read the 700+ pages and did all the excercises in
about 2 months.  Although I can do just about every problem in the book, I am
still no expert on C++ and I don't have 1/100th of the ability some of the
people in here have.

I did have some programming experience before hand.  I had been fooling around
with QBasic for a couple years and I wrote a bunch of programs on my calculator
to simplify my life in math class.  I guess "algorithmic thinking" came somewhat
naturally to me.

When I wanted to learn to program, I had no intention of writing a chess
program.  But a few weeks ago I was bored and said, "What the heck, I'll give it
a try."  There's enough info on the internet on the basic algorithms that you
could probably make an extremely bad chess program 2 weeks.  The algorithms are
fairly easy to understand (at least the main, vital ones).  Right now I have no
trouble beating the pants off my stupid little program in speed chess with the
search depth set to 7.  To make a program that can beat me would probably take
at least a year for a beginner, and I'm not that good either.

Don't learn to program just to write a chess program.  Learn so you can do a lot
of things like write utilities, solve hard math problems with brute force, etc.



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