Author: Uri Blass
Date: 21:19:49 02/22/05
Go up one level in this thread
On February 22, 2005 at 23:19:35, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On February 22, 2005 at 22:12:40, Norm Pollock wrote:
>
>>On February 22, 2005 at 19:07:22, Peter Skinner wrote:
>>
>>>On February 22, 2005 at 17:53:46, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On February 22, 2005 at 14:22:25, Matthias Gemuh wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On February 22, 2005 at 13:52:41, Brian Kostick wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On February 22, 2005 at 13:33:24, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On February 22, 2005 at 13:29:39, M Soszynski wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Where can I download the latest Crafty UCI engine?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Crafty has a Winboard interface. But you can play it as a UCI engine with an
>>>>>>>adapter.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Or you could bolt Pepito's nifty UCI interface onto crafty in about 5 minutes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Dann,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I would like to see this become common, UCI Crafty. Will all permissions of
>>>>>>course correctly. I wish so many compiler operators quit fooling around and do
>>>>>>something real like this. :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>Brian
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I don't "hate" it, I just don't like it a whole lot. :)
>>>>
>>>>It takes too much control away from the engine and empowers the UI with more
>>>>than I personally think is reasonable. In today's software world, the right
>>>>approach is to take the minimum functionality possible away from the engine, and
>>>>for the set of all programs, this "minimum functionality" has to be a common
>>>>subset that is taken from all engines. I don't believe it reasonable for the UI
>>>>to handle the opening book, book learning, endgame tables, tell me what to
>>>>ponder, when to ponder, how long to ponder, and so forth. I already have the
>>>>code to handle all of that built in, and I see no reason to take it out as then
>>>>I lose winboard functionality, or else I have spaghetti code that does this for
>>>>that UI, this for those UIs, and so forth.
>>>>
>>>>I want the UI to be the "user interface" only. Not play chess. Not make time
>>>>allocation decisions. Not tell me how long to think and when to stop searching
>>>>or start pondering, I want my program to make _all_ playing decisions and just
>>>>use the UI to tell the opponent what it played...
>>>>
>>>>That is why I don't like UCI.
>>>
>>>
>>>GO BOB!!!
>>>
>>>I totally agree. Even the engines that I have that support both protocals, I use
>>>the Winboard one.
>>>
>>>It is easier, allows the engine to make all the decisions.
>>>
>>>UCI is like Kramnik letting me make the moves for him. While it might be fun, he
>>>wouldn't be in the top 100 after long :)
>>>Peter
>>
>>If an engine is to make all the decisions, then should the engine use an opening
>>book and end-game tablebases? It seems to me that once you take away the opening
>>and the ending from the engine, you can take other things too.
>
>
>You can take whatever you want I suppose. But winboard/xboard does not do
>anything but "GUI" functions. The engine is responsible for _everything_ as it
>should be. A GUI that handles the book is (IMHO) NFG for tournament play, as
>book selection code is one of those "same input many output" functions that can
>not be copied from one program to another.
>
>Hint: Commercial Chess Programmers - this is simply a poor idea...
Bob,
engines can be responsible for everything also under the UCI protocol
The GUI does not control something that the engine does not want.
This is from engine-interface.txt (if you have not it then you can download it
in http://www.shredderchess.com/download.html(look at the bottom of that page)
* by default all the opening book handling is done by the GUI,
but there is an option for the engine to use its own book ("OwnBook" option,
see below)
* <id> = OwnBook, type check
this means that the engine has its own book which is accessed by the engine
itself.
if this is set, the engine takes care of the opening book and the GUI will
never
execute a move out of its book for the engine. If this is set to false by the
GUI,
the engine should not access its own book.
Note also that the engine has full freedom what to do about pondering:
It is from the same text:
* ponder
start searching in pondering mode.
Do not exit the search in ponder mode, even if it's mate!
This means that the last move sent in in the position string is the ponder
move.
The engine can do what it wants to do, but after a "ponderhit" command
it should execute the suggested move to ponder on. This means that the ponder
move sent by
the GUI can be interpreted as a recommendation about which move to ponder.
However, if the
engine decides to ponder on a different move, it should not display any
mainlines as they are
likely to be misinterpreted by the GUI because the GUI expects the engine to
ponder
on the suggested move.
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