Author: blass uri
Date: 21:46:01 01/14/99
Go up one level in this thread
On January 14, 1999 at 19:43:13, Don Dailey wrote: >On January 14, 1999 at 07:03:20, blass uri wrote: > >> >>On January 13, 1999 at 23:47:12, Don Dailey wrote: >> >>>On January 13, 1999 at 17:44:16, Fernando Villegas wrote: >>> >>>>On January 13, 1999 at 14:43:53, Don Dailey wrote: >>>> >>>>>On January 13, 1999 at 05:17:22, Will Singleton wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On January 12, 1999 at 17:04:10, KarinsDad wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>>Don, let me know when your individually created chess program canconsistently >>>>>>>beat Deep Thought and I'll take back my words. >>>>>> >>>>>>Hmm, last time I checked, I didn't see anything about hardware design in the >>>>>>CilkChess description. Has Don started burning proms? >>>>>> >>>>>>Couple of more points: a theoretical discussion is more interesting when the >>>>>>idea under discussion has some probability of occurring. For example, what will >>>>>>happen if a chess set is discovered on another planet? While this has very >>>>>>little chance of happening, it has a greater chance than does this Microsoft >>>>>>chess business. >>>>>> >>>>>>However, the question of team vs individual, leaving Microsoft out of it, is >>>>>>pretty relevant for chess programming. Progress will almost always occur at a >>>>>>faster rate when more than one person is working on a project, for several >>>>>>reasons. For chess *engine* programming, the benefit probably tops out at two >>>>>>people. Numerous examples abound from the literature. >>>>>> >>>>>>Don, haven't you always had a collaborator or two on your projects? CilkChess, >>>>>>Socrates and Tech? Didn't you benefit from some of these colleagues? >>>>>> >>>>>>Will >>>>> >>>>>Absolutely. We have a guy working on the evaluation who is a master >>>>>and will do a better job than I could by myself. We have also had a >>>>>number of people finding speedups in the code that I missed. We have >>>>>3 gui interfaces and have a couple guys experimenting with Temporal >>>>>Difference Learning. Aske Plaat has also contributed by improving >>>>>our implementation of mtd(f). >>>>> >>>>>There is also another team of people who built the Cilk language. >>>>>Cilk was actually built around the chess program, not the other >>>>>way around so I would have to include the whole cilk development >>>>>team too. >>>>> >>>>>Most of these team members are not chess experts, but will go on >>>>>to be among the best in the world at whatever they do. But the >>>>>bottleneck of the team is me. I get to spend very little time on >>>>>Cilkchess and most of this time ends up being to organize these guys >>>>>which is the best use of the time I have. >>>>> >>>>>But Cilkchess is a poor example since I am not a good example of a >>>>>"complete chess programmer." I taught myself programming, was >>>>>never better than a 1900 player in chess and just absorbed as >>>>>many ideas as I could from others and tried to be logical and >>>>>rational. A more complete chess programmer, would benefit less >>>>>than I would from having a team of experts at his disposal >>>>>because he would have less knowledge gaps (or expertise gaps) to >>>>>overcome. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>Wait, wait, wait... this is a double edge reasonning. The higher an expertise, >>>>the best he can grasp new ideas, nuances, etc. True: ABC will not be useful for >>>>him, but why we must suppose that ALWAYS these other guys will just thinks about >>>>the ABC? >>>>Fernando >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>>It would be interesting for me to know how big the core teams of >>>>>the top programs are. I'll bet that most of them have limited >>>>>consultations other than a gui guy and some of them do their own >>>>>gui's too. It seems that many teams also have someone doing the >>>>>book which I'll admit can be a big help. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>- Don >>> >>>I don't understand what you are asking. What do you mean by ABC? >>> >>>My core idea is that the more complete the expert, the less he >>>will need help from others to do the thing he is best at. This >>>seems like an obvious principle to me. >>> >>>If I had the very best book builder in the world I would never >>>ask him to only write part of my chess book, I would want him >>>to write the whole thing! If the chess programmer himself was >>>the best chess book builder too, then you just wouldn't get a >>>whole lot of benefit from getting a less competent book builder >>>involved would you? I'm better, but you go ahead and do it he >>>would say. The final product wouldn't be better just because >>>it had a greater number of people working on it would it? >>> >>>And that is all I'm really saying. As complex as a chess program >>>is, it's really a tiny project in the whole universe of possible >>>programming projects. Compared to an OS like Windows, it would >>>have to be considered even trivial. I think it's possible for a >>>single person to master the art of writing a chess program and >>>I think some chess programmers are complete in this sense. You >>>could provide them with a lot of extra help, but it would be >>>like me trying to advise Kasparov on which move he should play, >>>it's not likely I could contribute very much. >>> >>>I'll say this again. If I could hire a team of the top guys >>>in computer chess and motivate them to cooperate on the killer >>>chess program, I'm not sure at all that anything really great >>>would come out of it. Probably a very good program would come >>>out, probably not much better if any than the best of the bunch. >>>And I really believe this. Most of the decisions about what to >>>do are based on the individual philosophies of each programmer. >>>For instance, Fritz and Rebel are not very much alike. Is this >>>good or bad from the cooperative point of view? You might >>>argue that it's good because of the diversity but if they were to >>>cooperate, who decides which data structure you would use? >>>Perhaps the data structure Franz uses lends itself to speed and >>>the data structure Ed uses makes it easier to program more >>>knowledge? If you choose either one, not only do you defeat >>>the philosophy of the other, but what have you gained? If you >>>choose Ed's data structure then in what way did this cooperation >>>produce something better than what Ed already had? And why did >>>you choose Ed's, maybe Franz was the better starting point? >> >>I believe that if everyone understand the idea of the other they can come with a >>third idea that is better. >> >>A good example is the Rebel-Tiger project >> >>I read at Ed's site that christophe and Ed work on the Rebel-Tiger project(They >>are different program and they did Rebel 2-3 times faster by their ideas. >>Crysthophe gave ed an idea of a selection algoritham to do Rebel faster and ed >>improved this idea. >> >>They expect at least 100-150 elo improvement in a few years from this project >> >>They think to use their ideas to improve tiger and Rebel and to do a Rebel-Tiger >>system that select in every position which program to use >> >>Uri > >Give me a break! 3X for Rebel? There is no possibility of a >reasonable discussion if I now have to refute unproven claims >of 3X speedups from programs that are great already and anecdotes >like this. Show me this product, prove it to me and then we'll >talk. see www.rebel.nl/ctdev.htm It is possible to use this product as an engine for ectool Uri > >- Joe Skeptic
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