Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 21:32:55 06/09/02
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On June 09, 2002 at 23:03:47, Pham Hong Nguyen wrote: >Actually, Tom Kerrigan in his old post reported that it maybe 10% slower because >of pointer "this". Yes, now that you mention it, I think I recall reading that a while back. Even at a 10% loss, I think it is still worth it. A program that is 10% slower that has great move ordering and a low branching factor will still outsearch the program that isn't 10% slower. And in practical play, how much is 10% more NPS going to change things? 10% more nodes isn't going to get you an extra ply of search, so I don't think it's such a big loss. Like you mentioned, I also love the fact that I can get things done quicker, and make significant changes to my program without having to rewrite significant amounts of the engine. I think that at least while I'm starting out and testing my ideas I will use C++. Perhaps when I reach a point in development where a program like Crafty is (IE been out for many years, probably not going to have any great changes), and I have been able to test out most of my ideas that would cause me to have to alter data structures, then perhaps after I decide upon which features I'd like, I will do a rewrite in C if my program is strong and the extra 10% boost might help it have that extra edge. I suppose that while an extra 10% might not be able to get you an extra ply of search, it will be able to allow you to add in some smaller things. Perhaps an extra extention for example, which could help your program play better. It's certainly not a tradeoff with no downside, but at this point I prefer the quicker development and easy of change over absolute speed. Even if I wrote in C, I'm not going to look at the ASM code or even write lightning fast code anyway (at least not yet). So while my program might be slow at first, it will be more due to my lack of skill as a programmer than due to my choice of C++ over C. Russell
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