Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 17:03:39 11/17/04
Go up one level in this thread
On November 17, 2004 at 18:56:13, Uri Blass wrote: >On November 17, 2004 at 18:33:11, Dann Corbit wrote: > >>On November 17, 2004 at 18:00:38, Uri Blass wrote: >> >>>On November 17, 2004 at 17:16:37, Dann Corbit wrote: >>> >>>>On November 17, 2004 at 00:33:30, Uri Blass wrote: >>>> >>>>>On November 17, 2004 at 00:22:01, Uri Blass wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On November 16, 2004 at 20:14:23, Jonas Bylund wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>On November 16, 2004 at 19:49:37, Dick Long wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>On November 16, 2004 at 19:32:57, Mike Byrne wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>On November 16, 2004 at 19:13:03, Dick Long wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>Did Ferret ever become Freeware? If so where can you get it? Just wondering >>>>>>>>>>because Bruce after years of promise never has and obviously never will put it >>>>>>>>>>on the market. Further it's not as good compared to other programs now as it was >>>>>>>>>>vs some older programs. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>Thanks >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>No - but it was clearly near the top at one time and at it's best , it was top >>>>>>>>>amatuer for its day. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>Perhaps some day he will release it - but I have no reason to suspect that he >>>>>>>>>may. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>Thanks , Too bad years ago he could have sold it to rebel or chessbase, and made >>>>>>>>a nice piece of change easy. He just kept hmmming and hawing, i was like come >>>>>>>>on bruce. He just refused. Tsk Tsk Tsk. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Not everbody is interested in money... >>>>>> >>>>>>Of course but Bruce also never made it a free program and never sent it to >>>>>>tournaments like Leo's WBEC so everybody could see what is it's strength >>>>>>relative to other programs on equal hardware. >>>>>> >>>>>>Uri >>>>> >>>>>Of course Bruce does not have to explain and it is his own program >>>>>but the fact that he never sent it to tournaments like WBEC or other tournaments >>>>>is something that I do not understand because I expect programmers to be >>>>>interested in results of their own program against different programs. >>>>> >>>>>Not releasing a free program is clearly understandable because of all the clones >>>>>and I can also understand a decision not to sell the program if you believe that >>>>>you cannot make enough money from it(I have no idea how much money earn the >>>>>programmers of ktulu or partiot and maybe Bruce believes that the money that he >>>>>can earn or could earn from selling Ferret is not enough money to justify caring >>>>>about customers). >>>> >>>>I can think of lots of reasons why a person will not want to go commercial. >>>> >>>>1. You may lose a great deal of money. How possible? >>>>Suppose that you make a royalty of $2 per copy of the program sold, and 200,000 >>>>are sold. Sounds pretty good, because that is $400,000. But if in the same >>>>time span you spend 10,000 hours on bug fixing, enhancements, tech support, etc, >>>>then you made $40/hour. Sound pretty good? A programmer like Bruce can >>>>definitely make $100/hour, so he lost $60/hour. Multiply by 10,000 hours and it >>>>is a pretty good chunk of change. >>>> >>>>2. When you go professional, chess programming will cease to become a hobby and >>>>instead become a job. >>>>It's like the difference between digging a ditch and weight lifting. Nobody >>>>wants to dig a ditch. But everyone loves to lift weights. Counter-intuitive, >>>>but a real psychological phenomenon. When something ceases to become recreation >>>>and instead becomes a job, all the fun can go out of it. >>>> >>>>3. There are dangers associated with any sort of chess programming. Suppose >>>>you have a bug in your hobby program that it leaks memory. Who cares? It's a >>>>hobby program. But if it is commercial then you _HAVE_ to fix it, and as soon >>>>as possible or you are negligent. >>>> >>>>4. If you go commercial, then you have a responsibility to maintain the >>>>product. If you release it and it needs corrections, it is not a friendly thing >>>>to do to just try to walk away from it. How long will you be tied to >>>>maintenance? Over the lifespan of any software product, 80% of the cost is in >>>>maintenance. >>> >>>I do not believe that all the programs are the same. >>>Maybe it is correct for programs in other fields but chess programs are >>>different. >> >>Chess programs have no exemption. The 80/20 rule for software maintenance has >>been known for decades. If you do not plan for it, then it is an absolute sure >>disaster that will definitely happen. > >I know that programmers like Amir Ban have full time job not in chess >programming and I did not see disaster. He wrote his program many years ago. In November 1997, he won the world champion, still as an amateur. If he honestly tells you the hours he has spent on it before then and since then, I am sure that the 80/20 rule applies. >>> Chess programs represent thousands of hours of work for the very >>>>top performers like Shredder or Ferret. Which means that the maintenance work >>>>will be tens of thousands of hours. >>> >>>I see no reason that maintenance work will be tens of thousands of hours for >>>chess programs. >> >>It is not just time spent sitting down at the keyboard typing code and testing. >>It is time spent documenting. It is time spent talking about new features. It >>is time spent in meetings that are tangential to the tasks at hand. It is the >>total cost of maintaining a program. > >Nice theory but even sitting down and writing code to fix bugs that users do not >like is not done and Amir does not care about cases when Junior cannot find >simple things if it has not big influence on it's rating. In any case, he will have spent far more time in maintenance than in writing it. >>>It seems to me that for chess programs maintenance of commercial program is >>>clearly less time then developing the program. >> >>Not a chance. >>Unless there is some magic wand that can remove the burdens of software >>maintenance from a chess program, it will be exactly like all the others. > >Yes >There is some magic that is simply not caring about it. That is called negligence. If you are told about it and do not act, it becomes malice. Malice can pierce the veil of corporate invulnerability and land you in jail. >Chessbase had for years bugs in the interface that used tablebases and the bugs >were not fixed for a long time(I am not sure if all the bugs are fixed today but >I remember that for a long time when the KPP vs KP was installed without the KQP >vs KP the program could draw winning tablebases position because of refusing to >promote a pawn and repeat move. Be that as it may, if you ask the chessbase engineers on how much time has been spent maintaining the product compated to how much time it took to write it in the first place, I am absolutely positive it will fit well within the 80/20 rule. >Maybe it was fixed in the last version(I did not check) but the point is that >programmers of commercial programs usually do not care about fixing problems >like that problem. But there are other problems or features that they must fix. And any problem that may cause damage (e.g. a handle or memory leak or buffer overrun) MUST be fixed.
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