Author: Steve Maughan
Date: 09:05:31 01/02/03
Has anyone documented all the factors that affect a program's branching factor? I notice that Tiger 15 and Shredder 7 seem to be approaching BF = 2, which IMO is amazing. Ed also makes reference to a BF of 2 on his webpage. I remember that a BF of 6 was the norm 15 years ago. Then hash tables came in and if fell to 4. Then null move and it fell to 3 and now we seem to be at 2. The common thread to all of these elements is forward pruning i.e. hash tables cut off whole branches and null move the same. So is BF simply a function of selectivity and the ability of a program to forward prune or are there other elements? Your thoughts please, Steve
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