Author: Severi Salminen
Date: 06:32:34 01/28/02
Hi!
Has there been any discussion about the next protocol version? What ideas has
been presented?
I have a few:
Make the interface clearer:
1. _Every single_ command should be first accepted by the engine before WB
starts to use them - excluding "xboard" and moves. So if I don't want to see any
"random", commands, I don't have to. This would make it easier to add new
commands, debug, maintain...
2. There should be only one ("force", or "pause", or "break" for example)
command that engine needs to poll during the search. Now it is not clearly
documented which commands I should poll during search and which commands follow
a "force" command. And after this pausing command WB could send "Ping" to assure
that engine has stopped thinking and send the actual command _after that_. Now
it is also not clearly documented when "ping" might be sent.
3. Documentation should contain a list of "crucial" commands that an engine
should support to play chess. This is for new programmers.
4. Documentation should also include next info for _all_ commands:
- when the command will be sent
- in what state engine might be when it receives this command (if this command
is sent during the search or not)
- in what state the engine should stay after performing this command
5. Maybe every command (that has been accepted, 1st point) should be confirmed
by the engine after engine has really performed the necessary action. This would
also help debugging. The command could be "done" but since it now is used at
initialization, "ready" might be used.
6. Maybe WB could send "setboard" after every move. There would be no need to
program a move parses, engine wouldn't have to remember and save the game
history. So allways when the board changes, "setboard" is sent. I can't think
now any drawbacks in this but it would make things a lot easier: no need for
"undo" and maybe "new" commands in analyze mode.
7. The whole thing is to make WB simpler and more logical interface - including
the docs. The protocol system is a great thing and it really allows the backward
compatibility while still leaves room for development.
8. Why there is (this is probably documented somewhere) so strong connection
between GNUChess and WB? Why on earth are they distributed together?? Separating
them would be beneficial for both.
I have more ideas and maybe at some point even will do some programming but
please comment these first. I'll post this also to WB forum. BTW: it is also
possible that _I_ have not read the docs careful enough...
Severi Salminen
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