Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 13:26:26 02/06/04
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On February 06, 2004 at 15:47:32, Tord Romstad wrote: > >>* are the scores big enough to really matter anyway? >>etc.. :) > >Maybe not now, but again, this is likely to change when (if?) I continue >to develop my engine. You mentioned something recently that you called >"the fundamental principle of chess programming" (or something similar): >Never calculate something if you don't need it. I don't follow this >principle at all. :) > I calculate lots of stuff which I hardly use at all >at the moment, or which is only used in tiny and unimportant components >of the evaluation function engine. The point is that I hope it will be >useful some time in the future. My basic principle is to write the engine >in such a way that I can add new knowledge at a very low cost. > >The ideal world is far away, but I don't want to permanently block >those roads which could have a tiny hope of bringing me there. I agree, I just don't agree that building a big and complex attack table is the right way to go if you want to experiment a lot. One of the reasons is that the design of (e.g.) an attack table will limit you in trying certain things. For instance, if I want to try something new with my static move evaluator I only have to rewrite a few lines of code of that function. I think that is a lot faster than having to rewrite the attack table, that might include a major program rewrite. So although it might be very cute to do SEE by a lookup, it also isn't a very fexible way of doing it. Similarly, if I want to evaluate or extend on pins I write a function to check for that, no need to rewire the entire move generator just to try out one little experiment. Ultimately, in 20+ years when I know the optimal design of a chess program (yeah right) I'll be able to make a really good choice of attack table and by then I'll might do exactly as you do now, until then I perfer to avoid complexity to the widest possible extend. :) -S. >Tord
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