Author: David Mitchell
Date: 13:50:38 09/01/05
Go up one level in this thread
On September 01, 2005 at 09:40:50, Uri Blass wrote: >We have a lot of free chess programs with source code and the question that I >ask myself is if people need to pay money for programmers or they may hope to >get a program that do the task without money and save money. > >A good example is rating. > >The program that the israeli chess organization is using have a lot of >disadvantages. > >1)There is no option to calculate rating dynamically. > >It means that it is impossible to add tournaments later and ask the program to >calculate the rating for previous update retroactively or to exclude tournaments >that were calculated without a lot of work. > > >2)All the data is in one computer and it is impossible to work about everything >from home. > >3)It is impossible to edit results of the israeli league and if there is a >mistake people need to delete everything and write it again. > >4)There is no option of digital copying of tournament even if it is sent in the >right format. >For example it is better if the program can read cross table and enter it to the >rating automatically > >The claim of people is that all of this is going to cost a lot of money but can >save hours of work later and unfortunately the israeli chess organization does >not like to spend money on better rating system. > >I am not sure about the first part and I think that writing a strong program >like fruit2.1 is an harder task than all the tasks that are described but the >programmer do not ask money for it. > >My question is if you think that there is an hope that the israeli chess >organization can get a free program to do all the tasks without paying money in >case that the organization does the right steps to explain programmers exactly >what they need to do. > >Uri IMO, Uri, your chess league should NOT be using free source code. They need a standard spreadsheet or database, which will not only permit proper editing, but allow timely updates, exclusions, etc., very easily. The problem with "free" code is that there's a big effort needed to 1) make it properly functional 2) teach people how to work with it, because it's "one of a kind", and nobody has any experience with it. 3) getting timely updates or extensions/modifications of the program. You MIGHT get lucky enough to have someone code up the program, but getting them to then keep making modifications, extensions, and of course, bug-killing as needed, well - that's asking for a LOT of free work, and let's face it - it's just not THAT interesting a subject. It may seem like a big expense to buy Excel and/or Access software, but in the long run, your group will be way, way ahead. The high quality of the software makes everything you need to do, a whole lot easier. Reading in data from a tournament into a spreadsheet or database for instance, is very simple. Custom software, or "freeware" may seem like a great bargain, but it's really not the bargain it appears to be. Nobody is already trained to use it, it may not be free of serious bugs, and who's going to maintain it or make revisions your group needs? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >3)It is impossible to edit results of the israeli league and if there is a >mistake people need to delete everything and write it again. --------------- absolutely unbelievable, what are they doing here ? --------- If you're only keeping it on one computer, it should make the cost very reasonable. Good luck. Dave
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