Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Is it time for the Winboard Protocol to go the way of the Dodo?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:05:29 03/09/05

Go up one level in this thread


On March 09, 2005 at 12:13:26, Anthony Cozzie wrote:

>After the post on how Daniel Mehrmann is still working on XBoard/Winboard, I
>immediately starting thinking of ways to waste his time.  My question is: Does
>Winboard really have any advantages over UCI any more?
>
>The Anthony WB/UCI comparison:
>
>+UCI:
>
>Interface is cleaner & easier to implement, not being based on the crappy GNU
>chess protocol.
>
>Supports Multiple PVs, refutations, etc.
>
>Graphical configuration of engines.
>
>+WinBoard:
>
>Can operate in text mode.
>
>And this comparison is (obviously) quite favorable to UCI, although I may have
>missed things.  Anyway, I'd be willing to help Daniel out over the next few
>weeks if it meant a new version of Xboard with UCI support, and I'm guessing
>there would be a few other people willing to help out as well.
>
>anthony

-uci:

engine can't decide when to ponder, what to ponder, how much time to use, etc.
The GUI is an "interface".  Not a "director".  UCI misses that point.  Of course
the GUI should not be handling the opening book, book learning, endgame
tablebase probes when the starting position is a table position (for example,
crafty's "swindle mode").

IMHO winboard works just fine...  always has...  most of the additions after
1995 were the result of my bugging Tim for the new commands such as being able
to whisper/kibitz, offer/accept draws, know I am playing a computer, knowing my
and my opponent's rating, etc...



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.