Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 17:37:08 09/19/04
Go up one level in this thread
On September 19, 2004 at 15:10:54, Stuart Cracraft wrote: >On September 19, 2004 at 14:03:52, martin fierz wrote: > >>[snip] >> >>hi stuart, >> >>you seem to be very active programming your engine if the number of posts here >>at CCC is any indication. i guess you have put in all the basic stuff in your >>engine, and now it's playing some decent chess but is getting bashed on by the >>stronger engines, and you're not happy. >> >>i made a similar experience. after years of checkers programming, i started >>writing a chess program, which played it's first game about one month after i >>started on it, and improved in leaps and bounds for a couple of months, which >>was no big surprise to me since i'm rather familar with most of the techniques >>for chess programming from my checkers program. >>after half a year progress got slower, and after 9 months i couldn't detect any >>progress any more. i let it lie around for half a year now, and will try to find >>areas of improvement. but i think that from now on, progress is not so simple >>any more. i will have to take a good look at my evaluation for instance, and at >>the various extensions, and do a lot of testing. i don't believe there is any >>magic bullet that will do the trick. once you reach a certain level, every >>further improvement will have to be earned the hard way. >> >>in this sense, i encourage you to keep working on your engine, without resorting >>to this kind of 'senior programmer to the rescue' attitude! >> >>cheers >> martin > >I pulled back on an extension idea today and reduced another extension >and the program reached 250 out of 300 on WAC. So that's a "good weekend" >for me at this point. That I have two more days beyond today off to work >on it makes it only taste sweeter. I saved the version under "4.06" >and it is filed in the dusty history book area. You need to think about "cause" and "effect". IE does doing well on WAC make a program good, or does being good make a program do well on WAC? I believe the latter. I don't tune for test suites at all. As the program gets better, it will do better at wac as a result... Don't be confused and try to make it the other way around... > >I appreciated your interesting feedback. My comments tend toward the >sarcastic, often outlandish, and sometimes ridiculous when I hit a >brick wall -- and it often helps. Either I get stirred up enough to >try a different approach, or take time away. > >I've thought of getting the books A Whack on the Side of the Head >and A Kick in the Seat of the Pants to stir the creative juices again. >Not sure it would help for programming which seems to be one of the >strangest singular scientific/artistic artforms in the universe. > >My last program died its death 5+ years ago and I stepped away from >programming from then until this past June -- so I know what you mean >about taking a sabbatical. Obviously it helped. The latest program clobbers >me. One goal down. > >I am paralleling your experience of asymptotic progress at 3 months. >My progress was at least 10x faster due to advice from the programmers >on this forum. It would have taken at least 3 years to get this far >(if ever, I would have probably given up instead.) That's a testament >to this board. The *reason* my last program failed is due to not taking >this board more seriously. This time I did not make that error. > >Bob hinted that there is no substitute for hard work or other people's >code, I think in relation to parallelizing, but his comment can be expanded >to the whole subject of computer chess program improvement. For me, >the hard work is trying to integrate other people's ideas. > >Cheers, > >Stuart
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