Author: David Mitchell
Date: 13:52:15 02/22/04
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On February 22, 2004 at 14:08:36, David Potesta wrote: >I am eager to get started writing an engine. I am not a programmer however. I >am an IT person with Perl, Vbscript, SMS scripting experience. Most of this >experience is for specific administrative tasks...Cron jobs, log file rotation, >automated patching, etc.. What would be a good starting point for someone like >me? Are Deitel's Learning C recommended for a beginner? On February 22, 2004 at 14:08:36, David Potesta wrote: >I am eager to get started writing an engine. I am not a programmer however. I >am an IT person with Perl, Vbscript, SMS scripting experience. Most of this >experience is for specific administrative tasks...Cron jobs, log file rotation, >automated patching, etc.. What would be a good starting point for someone like >me? Are Deitel's Learning C recommended for a beginner? I guess the answer is "How eager are you?". While scripts are fine, they fare poorly in chess programs because of the size of the search tree, and other computationally intensive parts intrinsic to computer chess. If you really want to program a chess engine, you'll need to become a programmer, although not a professional one. The better you become at programming, the faster and easier writing an engine will be for you. Would it be feasible to take a class in C programming near you? C or C++ is undoubtedly the most popular language for CC programming. If you choose another language, any requests for specific assistance which touch upon the language may be met with few helpful replies. OTOH, chess programs have been written in many different languages. If your eagerness doesn't quite extend to C/C++, there's no reason to NOT write a program in a language you really prefer. A satistying result is not necessarily tied to which program is the fastest runner. I'd check out Bruce Moreland's, (and other fine web sites) for specific programming help, and also follow Jamca's progress as it gets written up. TSCP (Tom's Simple Chess Program), is another recommended program to study. If you decide to learn C/C++, I'd recommend leaving most of the complexities of C++ behind you, and sticking with the simpler C type procedural programming methods. OOP lover's will undoubtedly disagree, but chess isn't a great model for object oriented programming IMHO. For books, I recommend Ivor Horton's "Beginning C", and "The C Programming Language" by some unknowns named Kernighan & Richie ;), make sure you get the second edition, and read it twice. dave
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