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Subject: Re: Is it time for WB3?

Author: Peter Schäfer

Date: 00:51:22 03/11/05

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Michael,

please resist the urge to create a completely new protocol.
I'm certain that your design will be cleaner, more elegant, etc.

BUT: there is a huge number of existing XBoard engines and GUIs out there
and authors won't just happily jump to a new protocol. So in the best
case we'll end up with three standards and more confusion ;-(

Gradual improvements to XBoard will be accepted more easily.
Even if the protocol is a bit ugly, it has proven to be useful;
and having an established standard is much, much more valuable than a
state-of-the-art design (as much as I like clean software...)

some comments on your ideas:
>
>(1) An important thing for synchronization is that no matter what command engine
>recieves from gui, the engine must eventually output some indication that it's
>finished, e.g., "ready," "bestmove," etc. depending on the current state.
>
>(2) Engine never starts thinking on its own (and doesn't automatically make own
>move).
>

don't see a big demand for that. GUIs are able to handle engine "modes" right
now, so why apply restrictions ?


-- Peter



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