Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 14:35:35 02/14/04
Go up one level in this thread
On February 14, 2004 at 14:03:10, Uri Blass wrote: >On February 14, 2004 at 13:16:15, Christophe Theron wrote: > >>On February 14, 2004 at 08:57:14, Tord Romstad wrote: >> >>>On February 14, 2004 at 00:38:58, Christophe Theron wrote: >>> >>>>On February 13, 2004 at 12:41:41, Tord Romstad wrote: >>>>> >>>>>I guess all strong programs use what Cristophe once called "the null move >>>>>observation", >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>Mmh... This post was a long time ago. So you were reading at that time? :) >>> >>>Yes, I was. At that time, my own knowledge and experience was so limited >>>that I couldn't make any interesting contributions myself (some people >>>would claim that this is the case even today, but I know that there is >>>at least a small handful of amateurs who occasionally find something of >>>interest in my posts), but I was reading attentively. >>> >>>I have learnt a lot from you during the years I have been reading this >>>message board, and it is not without reason that you are among the people >>>I thank on my home page. Even when you are very vague about what you do, >>>like in the current thread, it is often sufficient to give me some new >>>and interesting ideas to try out. In 99% of the cases, my ideas are >>>probably entirely different from what you do, but occasionally they >>>still happen to work. :-) >>> >>>Tord >> >> >> >>What I have always tried to do is to hide the details of what's inside Chess >>Tiger (in order to protect my work a little bit) but still explain what my >>methodology (or work philosophy) was (in order to somehow give back to the >>community). >> >>I think it's important to have strong guidelines in your work. Some of them come >>from your knowledge of information processing in general (be careful not to >>create bugs, don't waste resources, never trust Microsoft...), and some of them >>are specific to the domain of chess programming and took me years to figure out. >>For example: >>* don't compute something in advance if you are not sure you will use it, >>because chances are that you will get a cutoff before you need it (remember it's >>just a guideline - sometimes you can break this rule). >>* you need a very accurate way of measuring progress, or you will not make >>progress at all. > >I do not think that the last claim is correct. >very accurate way of measuring progress can help you to get progress faster but >it does not mean that without it you cannot make progress. Of course you can... try. And then you will see what I mean. Christophe >>* Any change can make your program significantly weaker. You need to test your >>changes (with the method you have built) very often. > >I agree that every change can make the program significantly weaker but testing >that you did not make your program significantly weaker by a single change based >on games is easier than testing that you made a progress. > > >>* People believe that chess is about evaluation, but actually it's all about >>search (I'm trying very hard to break this rule, because it must be wrong from a >>mathematical point of view, but it's really difficult). > >chess is about both. >people tend to underestimate search but it does not mean that chess is not also >about evaluation. > >Uri
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