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Subject: Re: Yes, but not from computerchess (NT)

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 08:52:46 12/14/05

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On December 14, 2005 at 04:51:16, Tony Werten wrote:

>On December 13, 2005 at 10:33:31, Tord Romstad wrote:
>
>>Good point, Tony.
>>
>>Most people suffer from the misconception that chess programming is extremely
>>difficult, and that someone who has programmed a strong chess program must be
>>a wizard programmer.
>
>Yes, I've had job interviews that went like:
>
>"We want you to write a cryptographic API. What do you know about cryptography ?
>"
>"Absolutely nothing"
>"Well, you've written a chessprogram, so that can't be too difficult for you.
>You're hired"
>
>OTOH, writing a chessprogram makes you "getting inside the algoritms" wich is a
>usefull skill for other programming tasks.
>Also, as soon as you start doing new things you learn how to translate ideas
>into code. Since, for a layman, it all seems like new ideas, they probably
>overestimate this abillity a bit.

Cryptography is just about the easiest possible programming area.  The LAST
thing a programmer should be doing is to invent a new algorithm.  The existing
algorithms have been carefully researched and probed for holes by top
mathematicians and security specialists.  So doing cryptography is about as
difficult as:
1.  Downloading:
http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai/cryptlib.html#download
2.  Read the manual
3.  Add in the API calls
4.  Compile, link and document what you did.

On the downside, it would be hard to imagine any crypto project lasting more
than a week.

>>In the last couple of months, I have received two
>>unexpected job offers from employers who have seen my chess program.
>>
>>Tord



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