Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 17:15:26 02/25/04
Go up one level in this thread
On February 25, 2004 at 19:33:38, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >On February 25, 2004 at 18:24:05, Bob Durrett wrote: > >> >>Ladies and Gentlemen: >> >>The ideal CCC moderator should be mature, very smart, tough as nails, and above >>all NOT senile. > >And ideally it should not be folks that makes up stories that they own a purple >heart, when they don't. > >>Technical expertise is somewhat important. >>Currently and in the past we have had some excellent moderators and I trust the >>same will be true in the future. > >In general the candidate level is deteriorating here. > >Additionally the computerchess scene gets dominated in reality by >european/middle east progress, but moderation at CCC by North-Americans. > >>Bob Durrett >> >>P.S. A few more sophisticated and elegant chess algorithms would be nice too. : >>) > >Good elegant algorithms (or enhancements) never get posted in CCC. > >In fact i have invented many algorithms / search methods, which i never posted >and do not plan to post either. > >All but one appeared to be big BS in the end anyway, but one looks real >promising. > >I lack time to implement it, because making money is important in life and in >general that means not working onto search algorithms, no matter how cool it is >to do. > >Perhaps i will give it a shot 1 week before ict4 :) > >Most miserably failed the algorithm where i had put a lot of months work in, >which started off as a CNS implementation (conspiracy number search). > >Also failed was a selective searching search method where i had put in 2 years >of work (1998+1999). > >In general in computerchess experimenting with new search methods is what takes >a lot of time. > >Nowadays also time consuming is of course parallellization. > >When talking about search algorithms (also parallel search) i am sure there is >still a lot to invent. Majority of simple stuff has already been discovered. it >is very difficult to find new algorithms that use very simple general working >principles. > >However i'm sure there is still a lot to discover when complexity gets added. > >The reason why in general at universities never complex stuff gets invented in >game tree search is simply because the vaste majority, so everyone with one or 2 >exceptions (Jonathan Schaeffer is one such an exception of a good guy), they are >busy at a level which is so simple. They still must learn basic stuff and are >simply busy reinventing what already has been invented then they put 1 condition >different and they call it a new algorithm (which IMHO is not a new algorithm >then but at most a new tuning of an existing algorithm). > >So they simply are not *busy* creating complex working algorithms. And as i >already said, all effort spent so far by the same majority of researchers has >already been put in finding simple algorithms. > >Of course it would be cool if someone out of that group comes up with a new >simple working algorithm that works great. > >But the odds are small that they will find it. If someone will find it, it will >be a computer chess programmer who's not going to post it. > >This where when you add complexity to algorithms, there is an entire field open >to discover new algorithms in. The number of complex search methods published >(not counting parallellization algorithms of course which are all non trivial to >implement) which you cannot implement within 5 minutes of your time and from >which you know in advance that they *must* be tried just in case they work, you >really can count them on 1 hand. > >Yet i'm sure that no coming researcher will focus upon complex algorithms >either. The problem is simply it takes yourself to program a quite good playing >chessprogram in order to test simple algorithms and figure out whether they >work. > >Only when a researcher has understanding there he can move on to create some >more complex algorithms when he has the time. Let me put my fortune teller hat on: I see considerable change on the near horizon. In the next 20 or 30 years, we should see great technological improvements in digital, computer, and software areas. There should be tons of opportunity for chess programming enthusiasts to delve into new hardware and software concepts and no one should become bored. Indeed, the very definition of "programming" may change radically in our lifetimes. Now I will take my fortune teller hat off again. Hmmmm. What were we talking about? I forgot. Oh well, Spring will be here soon. That should be good enough. I need another snack. Bob D.
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