Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 00:41:57 08/30/02
Go up one level in this thread
>>> I think >>>the amateur programs have an advantage here in that there are no commercial >>>distractions to the development of their engines. >> >>I think the professionals have an advantage since they get to work on computer >>chess 40 hours a week or more. > >I think that this assumption is wrong. >I know that Amir Ban has a full time job not in chess programming. > >Uri Obviously I can't speak for Amir (but perhaps he'll do so himself? :-), but my guessing would be that this is compensated for by: a) there are two authors, not one. So even though both have other work, time does get put into the program because there's two people who contribute time to it. b) they know GMs! :-) Any sort of feedback that they get is bound to be valuable in some way over the long haul, even if it doesn't arrive consistently and/or the ideas aren't easily implementable. Against the latter, though, Junior was already pretty good before they received much in the way of GM comments. More generally, I believe that professionals simply work harder at (identifying and) solving the problems of their engine. An amateur might do things one way because they are interested in doing so. They may not bother to change something even though they know they could probably get a slight improvement if they did. When they receive a bug report, they may look at it, but much of the time the issue won't get resolved, just left in the pile and/or forgotten. In contrast, a professional will keep at it, make sure they understand what's going on to cause the trouble, fix the problem, and retain it as part of some testing so that they can make sure that they won't regress later. They'll implement new ideas that they think are likely to work, but won't hesitate to rip them right back out again if they don't. There's a steady focus on finding what actually gets the job done, to do it in whatever way works the best. From time to time they'll even mothball huge chunks of their program, and rewrite them knowing more than they did the last time. And I think it's reasonable to assume that your third chess engine is going to be much stronger than your first one. The best amateurs do this stuff too, but then, they're the next pros -- if they want to be. Dave
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