Author: Peter Berger
Date: 08:09:04 12/21/01
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On December 21, 2001 at 09:08:53, José Carlos wrote: > It's definetly a reason to celebrate, specially for commercials. Many amateurs >engines, with many fans each, means a lot of interest in computer chess. The >more interest in computer chess, the more chances commercial programmers can >sell their programs. This is assuming that every engine has some fans of its own and that it's not the very same fan guy for every other engine all the time :). I think I disagree with your statement. More engines definitely means more interest from the programmer side. I see no connection to user numbers. > If you ask "why do those weak engines have fans?", there are many reasons: > - Authors and friends/relatives, obviuosly. > - Amateur authors are helped by people. Those people who help the programmer >"feel" like they have contributed to the thing, so they consider it partially >own. "Those people who help the programmer "feel" like they have contributed to the thing," I don't really understand this sentence. If they helped they have contributed, haven't they? Maybe some people get taken away with their helping and start to feel like some kind of author themselves - but I haven't seen this often. I have noticed some chess computer journalists suffering this effect at times :) > - For some reason I fail to understand (maybe psicologysts know) people tend >to assess human personalities to the programs. When you read posts about tests >matches, you see things like "phalanx tried desperately to attack" or "crafty is >in good shape" or "fritz didn't give a chance to tiger". And, the same way you >like some people, then you end up liking some program. There certainly is some truth in this but there are also some good "reasonable" reasons. Some of the "middleclass" engines have very interesting chess styles. Look at Hossa. It is weaker than the commercials but the author has especially worked on its style to make it entertaining for humans. A more well-known example is Phalanx. It isn't as strong as Chess Tiger but it has a very interesting knowledge about attack on opponent king. So I think there are good reasons to like an engine even if it is not the very strongest. > - People from Spain will probably be happy with Pepito's or Averno's success. >Italians are happy with Leila or Delfi. In Argentina Gaviota has a lot of fans >and the same for Amyan in Uruguay. Not all coutries have top programmers, but >I'd be happy if I could run a Spanish winboard championsip, or form a Spain >team. > - ... True. Won't work for German engines though. We have too many of them :) pete
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