Author: Swaminathan
Date: 03:06:50 02/10/06
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On February 08, 2006 at 19:07:01, Tord Romstad wrote: >When reading this forum, it sometimes amuses me how many >people are surprised at the appearance of the numerous new >programs which have appeared near the top of the rating lists >over the last year, and by the tremendous improvements in >playing strength. > >For those who have followed the amateur computer chess >scene since a long time, it is no surprise at all. The very rapid >improvement in the general level of strength isn't a recent >development; it has been going on for several years. The gap >between the new and improving programs and the established >professionals has been constantly diminishing, and it has long >been clear that it was only a matter of time before some of the >new engines would surpass the old giants. Because most CCC >readers only follow the top programs, they are not aware of >what is going on among the slightly weaker programs, which >leads to the widespread belief that programs like Rybka, Fruit >and Spike appear out of nowhere. > >The programmers of the old and new top programs deserve >credit and admiration for their efforts, but this post is not about >them. I want to bring your attention to the fact that the rapid >advances in computer chess is above all the result of a immense >community effort. An important factor is the numerous programmers >who have generously shared their tricks and techniques with their >competitors (and I think it is fair to say that even many of those >who are quiet about the internals of their engines have profited >greatly from the discussions), but no less important is the interaction >between programmers and testers, and those who run tournaments >between amateur chess engines. > >For me - and, I am sure, to many other amateur chess programmers - >the enthusiastic community found in the Winboard Forum is one >of the biggest attractions of this weird hobby. I still remember my >joy when I discovered the Winboard Forum about three years ago, >and found that even pathetically weak engines like my own (remember >that this was three years and approximately 500 Elo points ago) got >a warm and friendly welcome. I thought hardly anybody would be >interested in such a weak and buggy engine, but I couldn't have been >more wrong. Several people started playing tournaments with my >little program against other engines of similar strength, and my >mailbox exploded with games, tournament results, debug logs and >suggestions for improvements. I have been part of the community >ever since, watching my program crawl painfully slowly from the >lower half of the tournament tables towards the top. Without the >testers, I would have found myself a better hobby long ago, and my >program would be hundreds of rating points weaker than it currently is. > >I am fairly sure my story is not unique. Testers like Leo Dijksman, >Heinz van Kempen, Olivier Deville, Patrick Buchmann and Günther Simon >(and others) are among the greatest heroes of computer chess, and >deserve just as much praise as Vasik Rajlich and Fabien Letouzey. They are not heroes, they are just testers who report games and results to the programmers, just an assistant to the real developer.and They do not earn money from testing that's the drawback.If programmer profit from the program they sell, they might get little only if they were involved as a real tester and not as a tester for all engines,which they are probably not. A Programmer distributing strong programs like Rybka,shredder,Fritz either as a product or making it available as freeware are heroes. Thanks for your really strong program Glaurung. >Without their efforts, we wouldn't be where we are today. Some of >the current top programs wouldn't exist at all, and some of them would >have been much weaker. > >It is fundamentally important that engines of *all* levels are tested, >and not just the best ones. Even for a talented programmer, developing >a top program takes a lot of time and hard work. There are certainly only programmers hard work really matters, IMO you could not just compare a guy who publish results to the guy who types code to improve the program, the guy who types the code deserve a lot of credit. > >Tord
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