Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 21:39:11 02/15/99
Go up one level in this thread
On February 15, 1999 at 14:32:16, James Robertson wrote: >On February 15, 1999 at 11:57:19, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On February 15, 1999 at 10:13:49, Jeff Anderson wrote: >> >>>It doesn't send the 'Hello from Crafty x.xx' at the beginning does it? >>>Jeff >>> >>>On February 15, 1999 at 07:56:53, Fernando Villegas wrote: >>> >>>>On February 15, 1999 at 05:43:19, Jeff Anderson wrote: >>>> >>>>>I've read at the Gambitsoft site that a new chess engine called Bionic has >>>>>source that may be almost completely copied from Crafty. I have heard nothing >>>>>about this on CCC. Can give me the whole of the story? >>>> >>>>The whole story is more like a full history. You arrived too late. You are like >>>>a guy saying " I have heard nothing about Titanic, what happened to it?" Well, >>>>this is too long to reduce, but maybe we can say that a long discussion followod >>>>Bionic appearance as much some people thought it was not very ethical to win a >>>>tournament with a program that supposedly is scarcely something more than Crafty >>>>and made use of a tehcnique that gave to it an enourmous advantage. From there >>>>followed a weually loing thread about what should be a parameter to stablish a >>>>difference between a program and his father-program. And so and so. >>>>Take a look at post posted 3 to 4 weeks ago. >>>>fernando >> >>Just wait a few days. I'll give you _another_ eye-popping revelation. There >>is _another_ new program that appears to be a nearly line-for-line copy of >>crafty. It is very strong, and the people testing it have _no idea_ that it >>really is crafty. Who? wait for another day as I have some more comparisons >>to do. But I can tell you that many of the character strings in this engine >>have simply been converted to "German". But the engine is the same, the book >>is the same, the hashing is the same, the learning files are the same, the >>binary book format is the same, the constant bitmap patters (pre-initialized by >>the compiler) are the same, the procedure names are the same, and the list goes >>on. >> >>Really sad news, IMHO... >> >>But it seems some folks have zero morals... > >I would suggest you stop releasing the source to Crafty. > >I must admit that a lot of what I learned about chess engines came from Crafty >and EXchess (i.e. the Winboard interrupt code; in my entire life I would never >have thought of that), but most things can be done as well or better by >descriptions. I.e., my entire rotated bitboard engine was based on Tim Foden's >emails in English (not C++) before I ever downloaded Crafty source.... and I am >much, much happier to have my *own* bitboard engine that I understand inside and >out than one copied from Crafty.... > >If there must be free source for beginners, use EXchess as it is very easy to >understand and is weak enough to probably not be renamed and entered into a >WMCCC. > >James that won't work. Crafty was weak the first year it existed. But weak programs have a tendency to become strong programs, if their authors remain interested.
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