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Subject: Re: Yet another flame (nice title but its not that bad :-) )

Author: Matthew McKnight

Date: 07:46:33 11/19/03

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On November 19, 2003 at 10:32:18, Uri Blass wrote:

>On November 19, 2003 at 10:09:58, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On November 19, 2003 at 08:41:01, Georg v. Zimmermann wrote:
>>
>>>I as well would much prefer the option 2 myself , but :
>>>
>>>> Some commercal interests have made a good chunk of money (not
>>>>bad in itself) by taking advantage of open research (papers, test data, game
>>>>collections, etc.) but have done little or nothing in return.  On the other
>>>>hand, there are those researchers who have made little, if any money from their
>>>>work, yet who continue to advance the field with ideas, data, and mentoring.
>>>>
>>>>I remain wholly unimpressed with one shot publicity stunts that do next to
>>>>nothing to help with our Art.
>>>
>>>I disagree again. Commercial programmers have written by far the superior
>>>computer chess programs. If that is no contribution, then what ?
>>
>>How will that help the _next_ generation of computer chess authors?
>>
>>Answer:  It won't.
>
>I do not agree with that answer.
>
>Even programs without open source give information that it is possible to learn
>from it.
>
>They give evaluation and main line so you can learn something about their
>evaluation.
>
>You can see at what depth they solve positions so you can guess something about
>their extensions.
>
>It is not a case when they give nothing.
>
>Uri

This is well and good Uri, and you are right, you can deduce some things from
simply watching a program play.  But consider this, two engines that both
produce the same line, and exact same eval, but one finds the line 2x faster
than the other.  This is very significant to strength, and leaves absolutely
nothing to be inferred about the engine's search techniques.

Matt



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