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Subject: Re: how many chess programs have more than one author?

Author: Jens Kahlenberg

Date: 06:57:17 07/03/03

Go up one level in this thread


On July 03, 2003 at 09:29:32, Uri Blass wrote:

>On July 03, 2003 at 08:42:38, Albert Bertilsson wrote:
>
>>On July 03, 2003 at 07:45:44, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On July 03, 2003 at 07:16:38, Albert Bertilsson wrote:
>>>
>>>>On July 03, 2003 at 03:35:32, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I think that the fact that most programs have only one author is a disadvantage.
>>>>>
>>>>>I believe that programmers could progress significantly faster if the program
>>>>>was designed by 2 persons when one person decide about the data structure of the
>>>>>program and the algorithm and the second person implement it without bugs.
>>>>>
>>>>>The problem of a lot of chess programs is bugs and part of the bugs are bugs
>>>>>that the authors even do not know about them.
>>>>>
>>>>>I think that a person that his talent is not finding good ideas but implementing
>>>>>ideas without bugs may be productive for a lot of programmers.
>>>>>
>>>>>I wonder if there is a team of 2 programmers in chess when the job of one
>>>>>of them is not to suggest data structure and algorithms but only to write the
>>>>>program with no bugs based on a given data structure and algorithms that are
>>>>>given by the second person in the team.
>>>>
>>>>I don't know of any engine developed in this way, I think that the implementing
>>>>programmer would get tired pretty soon, if not paid for his services.
>>>
>>>My idea was that the 2 programmer may be a team to develop a commercial engine.
>>>
>>That puts it in an entierly diffrent perspective, because it rules out the
>>problems of "boring" and losing interest.
>>
>>>>
>>>>I think that doing this type of project with more than one programmer is
>>>>difficult for the following reasons:
>>>>
>>>>1. It's very time consuming, and doing it on spare time will mean that sometimes
>>>>one programmer has no time, and the other programmers have to work without him
>>>>for perhaps a year.
>>>>
>>>>2. It requires diversity, if both programmers are interested in developing the
>>>>search, they will be in conflict on doing the "fun" stuff, and both have to
>>>>divide the "boring" stuff between them.
>>>
>>>No
>>>
>>>If both programmers have the same skill in the "boring" stuff then it is a bad
>>>idea.
>>>The idea was that one of the programmers has big releative advantage in doing
>>>the boring stuff so s(he) can do it clearly faster.
>>>
>>I guess your consept has some strengths, although the team members would all
>>have to be skilled chess programmers to communicate their ideas and understand
>>each other. I don't think a 1:1 ration would be good, due to the time it would
>>take to implement the design, at least 2 programmers would be needed to keep up
>>with the designer.
>
>It is dependent on the skill of the programmers in this task.
>
>I think that a company can decide about a test for all people who want the job
>of implementer.
>
>a possible test may be for example to give programmer the data structure of my
>program,explanation of the meaning of every varaible and the job of every
>function that is used in the move generator(some functions are for incremental
>update of attack tables) and to give them the job of filling the missing parts.


I read somewhere below that your program has _lots_ of global variables. So
probably nobody else than _you_ can pass the suggested test. A programmer trying
to fill in the missing parts will _definitely_ fail. The answer of responsible
programmers to your test should be: redesign before filling the missing parts.

Regards,
Jens


>
>I believe that there is going to be a big gap between the best programmers and
>the average programmer in time that they need to implement perft in these
>conditions without bugs.
>
>>
>>I don't think it would be easy to find programmers with a big relative advantage
>>in doing boring or easier stuff, since the designer must be a highly skilled
>>programmer to make a good design.
>
>I disagree.
>
>The fact that somebody has good ideas for choosing the data structure and the
>functions of a program does not mean that he is also relatively strong in the
>task of implementing them with no bugs.
>
>Uri



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