Author: KarinsDad
Date: 14:04:10 01/12/99
Go up one level in this thread
On January 12, 1999 at 15:15:09, Don Dailey wrote: >On January 09, 1999 at 15:12:34, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >>Very interesting thread! And nevertheless I cannot see too much differences >>between your approaches. Perhaps there is some confusion about how cooperation >>really works. Have you hear a jazz battle between, say, two tenor saxofonist? >>Well, they does not cooperate in the sense they follow an score from top to >>bottom, but after some prelims has been made, they try to cut each other with >>the best sequence of improvised bars they can produce in order to get something >>beatifull and let the other guy with no ideas at all, BUT that's the way >>cooperation in fact happens as this battle produces in each of the warriors an >>enhanced creativity and so the final perfomance can be a glorious masterwork >>made toguether. History of science show the same: not that guys works really >>face to face trying to optimize his efforts, but the effort of each of them to >>outperform the other guys and at the same time knowing what the others do >>-trought publication., etc- make of all this a cooperative effort, >>volens-nolens. Sure, MS would not get nothing just putting our genuses just to >>mix his ideas, but they can create a mix of mutual offer of ideas and tricks and >>individual work for putting that common ideas in a personal, better recipe. >>Something like that is happening between Ed and Christophe as they themselves >>recognize. Why not would 'nt be possible in a MS tank of programmers? >>Fernando > > >I think I agree with KarinsDad more than he thinks I do, but I do >think he see's creativity as kind of an assembly line process more >than I do and I think he is a victim of the more is better philosophy >which is often just not true. I see creativity as an individual or small team process. I see the effective implementation of creativity as a larger group process. My postings have repeatedly said that you need a small team (1 to 3 individuals) to handle the design (i.e. the creative part). This team would then be augmented by a larger group of other individuals (who are also good at their respective jobs) so as to not bog the creative individuals down with things such as converting part of the code to assembly (which is a fairly mind numbing task) or writing a GUI. > Once you get to a certain level of >granularity you won't squeeze anything out of a huge group effort. A >silly example is adding 2 + 2. How many people does it take to do the >best possible job of this? > >I also see writing a good chess programs as very individualistic >process. I can't see a lot of people cooperating to write one except >using a process pretty much as the one you just described and I also >described when I said just let them all compete with their >own solo's and encourage them to share ideas. Really, this is >already being done collectively by all of us, I don't know anyone >who has written their program in a vacuum and we all use a lot of >well known techniques. The best two chess programs ever were Deep Thought and Deep Blue. Here is an alphabetical list of some of the team members for Chiptest, Deep Thought, and then Deep Blue. Thomas Anantharaman Joel Benjamin Jerry Brody Murray Campbell A. Joseph Hoane, Jr. Feng-hsiung Hsu Randy Moulic Andreas Nowatzyk C.J. Tan This is not even a complete list. No one individual made them successful. They did it as a TEAM. Don, let me know when your individually created chess program can consistently beat Deep Thought and I'll take back my words. > >I think the idea is incredibly naive that microsoft could just set >their mind to it and easily blow everyone else out of the water with >a chess program. IBM did it with Deep Thought for years. It's already been done once. Why do you think it could not be done again? > >Here is an example of what I consider the naiveity involved. Who >would you pick in a chess match, Kasparov or a room full of 1000 >genius's who just learned how to play chess yesterday? Shouldn't >1000 be 1000 times better than one? Ok, so since Kasparov is rated >3 times more than any of these guys then maybe the whole group is >only 300 or 400 more brainpower than Kasparov? But we all know >that one is better and in this case one is even better than 1000. >And at tournament time controls I might argue that one is better >than 6 billion, or whatever the population of the earth is now. >It's possible that a room full of supergrandmasters MIGHT outplay >Kasparov if they were extremely well organized, but even this is >pretty debatable at the time control Kasparov excels at. Even if >it happened they would not just blow him away or completely outclass >him. What does this example of Kasparov playing against a group (of anyone) have to do with an individual (or a group) programming a chess program? Of course you can find human endeavors where an individual can do better than a group. But you'll find more human endeavors where a group can do better than an individual. If you think Kasparov is so brilliant a chess player, then I guess I'll put him on my Microsoft team as a consultant. If Joel Benjamin can help Deep Blue beat Kasparov, then Kasparov can help guarantee that MSChess defeats everybody else. > >This is sort of a law of life. If you choose something that >requires a great deal of labor, more is always better. But if you >pick something that requires extreme excellence at a well constrained >and limited task, you can't just buy your way to the top or >commission a team of laborers to do it. > >What kind of music or art do you like? You are a writer, do you >have someone you admire deeply who has influenced you and who you >think is the best at what he does? Do you think some concerted >group effort by someone with deep pockets will create a work so >great it would just shame your hero? Don't worry, this won't happen. > >A great chess program is a work of art. It's also a great engineering >effort and having help can sometimes be of some use. And yes, it's >possible to get inspiration from others and in fact we all do. But >you're just not going to get some big corporate giant to stamp out a >great chess program like it's something they do every day it just >doesn't work that way. I can't see microsoft ever producing a great >literary work just by hiring 1000 authors, a truly great musical >score just by hiring a team of composers, a great painting just by >getting 1000 good painters together, etc. If you want the best, >you find the best one and buy or hire that. > >You are a bit of an artist yourself Fernando, I just cannot see you >eating at McDonalds, admiring Microsoft or drinking cheap wine. > >- Don
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