Author: Dieter Buerssner
Date: 01:43:49 03/11/05
Go up one level in this thread
On March 11, 2005 at 03:51:22, Peter Schäfer wrote:
>>(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 ?
To make it easier for the engine. Modes are prone to error. Many new WB engines
do not support analyse, for example (things seem to have changed a bit now, but
it was like this some years ago, witnessed by all those "engine supports
[analyse/ponder/edit/...] lists". Many early engines have bugs. As one color,
engine has to start searching automatically, as the other it has to wait for a
go. What was it again, that the engine has to do, when receiving a new in
analyse mode? That an engine is analysing might be useful to know (for example
it might switcht off assymetric evaluation). But it has IMHO little to do with
what we know of analyse mode in WB. A modern GUI will drive analysis with
thinking times, which in WB it would do outside analyse mode. I think, it is
much better handled in UCI, which does not need any modes. Instead it has
infinite time search. The main logic of an UCI engine can be much like
do
{
result=handle_next_input();
} while (result != ABORT);
With the WB modes, inside the do while, there will be many ifs. if (force_mode),
if (analyse_mode), if (pondering). Ahh yes, if in analyse mode, start a search,
that must not yield a move, other searches must output a move. Really? What
happens when you receive a result during normal search/ponder search (before and
after you got the opponent move)? Does it imply force mode?
It is more work on the engine side. Of course it is much more suited for console
operation.
I think I have a not too buggy implementation of Xboard and UCI. For XB, I found
subtle bugs after years (that say happened each 100th ICS game), for UCI it took
a day.
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