Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 16:48:25 09/14/05
Go up one level in this thread
On September 14, 2005 at 19:14:18, Fernando Villegas wrote:
>Lot time ago I wrote a post about how chess sprogrammers, as many high-end
>performers in any endavour, had a certain stock of ideas -important, basic
>ideas, not talking of second rate ideas to improve the first ones- and that
>after exhausting them, they went to retirement. In other cases, I said, the
>problem was not lack of ideas but of will, stamina, desire to follow the path.
>I was strongly refuted, I recall, by Chris Theron. "It was not the case", he
>said. Creative guys have always a bag full of ideas.
>Well?
>Since those post this happened:
>a) Lang never more wrote a really new genius. He has dedicated his efforts to
>merchandising and new platforms.
I upgraded my PC version of ChessGenius from 7.0 to 7.1 recently.
>b) Schroeder sold his company and afeter giving a farewell gift to all of us,
>Pro Deo, he retired.
I don't think we can make him work until he is 90. However, he has also made
improvements to ProDeo for us, as we are on 1.1 now, and not 1.0 (his initial
release). If we consider to make enough noise, he may even do some more free
work for us.
>c) Theron himself has disappear. Probably it's a matter of his new engagement as
>a father, I hope it is just that.
The nerve of that guy. And which is more important, his children or Tiger 16.0!
>d) Morsch does not hope to keep the edge and so he went -with my blessing in any
>case- to the most soft field of "human-like" engines.
I doubt it. I think that the "human like" engines is pure ad-copy {bubbled up
by some sales executive} and he will still be working on making it stronger.
>e) Wittington, father of Cstal, sold his business, bought a farm to take care of
>cows and abandoned completely his criature to the voracious marketing hunger of
>minimal companies offering his program piecemeal.
I think that CSTal can still be bought, remarketed as some other name (IIRC).
>Exception made of Bob Hyatt, the exception that makes the rule, the stampede of
>programmers is continue and unstoppable.
Mark Uniacke
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen
Johan de Koning
Steen Suurballe and Dan Wulff
Fritz Reul
Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Anthony Cozzie
Fabien Letouzey
and lots of others are still at it.
It does not matter who it is who makes progress. Someone is going to write a
stronger chess engine tomorrow than the strongest one that we have today.
He/She might be in that list above, they might be someone else that we know of,
or they might fall out of the sky like Per-Ola Valfridsson did. At any rate,
every time the SSDF tests, a new engine is on top. I expect that trend to go on
forever.
>Ny question is: who will be the next?
To quit chess programming? Some will quit. Some of them will come back. Some
others will start. It is the same with every career. I did some professional
writing and also taught college. I don't do either of those things now, but I
plan to do both when I retire from "actual work."
>Think that now, besides age and boredom, we have another factor pushing
>retirement: sharp drop of profit.
The price of professional chess programs has been dropping. But I do not think
we can assume that profits are not possible. Even if profit should drop to
zero, I think we will still get great new engines. Fabien did not start out
planning to go professional (and he still may or may not do that). It's just
that he happened to write the strongest engine around almost by accident.
>Fernando, gerontologyst
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