Author: Odd Gunnar Malin
Date: 13:24:49 03/03/06
Go up one level in this thread
On March 03, 2006 at 13:59:27, Jay Urbanski wrote: >I'd like to get some comments on an idea that's been growing in the back of my >head for some time now. The problem is that of opening books. We now have two >open protocols for communication between engine and GUI with Winboard and UCI - >but every GUI has chosen to go the route of a proprietary book format - >presumably to lock users into that GUI. (Even Arena does this, something that >puzzles me since it is free) This may be good for the vendors business models, >but it bad for users since it limits choice. > >So what is the engine author to do? They can: > >A. Pick a GUI to support (and alienate users of other GUIs) >B. Make an engine book (with almost certainly less features than the GUI books) >C. Support all the GUIs (way too much effort, and almost certainly inconsistent >quality of books) > >All of these have their shortcomings, so my proposal is the establishment of an >open book format. The idea is that with one format option "B" could be a lot >more attractive, especially if enough features were put into the book >specification. > >A common objection to this idea is "It won't fly without support from the GUI >vendors, and none of them will support it". I agree none of the GUI vendors are >likely to support it at first (except maybe Arena?) but I contend that if enough >engine authors support it, *and* we could get a decent book editor/viewer >written so that users could view the book, tweak it, etc - it wouldn't matter >whether the GUI authors support it. And if it became popular enough, the GUI >vendors might add it as a feature due to customer demand. > >So I'd like comments/feedback/criticism from everyone. Book authors especially, >what features would need to be present to make it a good format? As a user I >would defnintely want book learning and an intuitive but flexible syntax to >weight moves. > >Would an existing format like Polyglot be a good starting point? Would the >Arena team consider donating the .ABK format as the basis? Would anyone be >willing to donate programming skill & time toward a decent book editor/viewer? > >Am I the only one who cares about this? :) Isn't it easier to agree on some import rules for importing pgn-files, eg. !, ?! etc. after the move are interpretet as the same in all gui when importing. ChessPartner have another system that also could be considered, it allow you to specify a score for each line in the pgn file. The problem I have is that I create my books as games with variations in a DB program (CA for me). Then I have to make all sorts of converting to be able to import it into the GUI I want to play with, ChessMaster, Shredder, ChessPartner or even Fritz. I'm maybe excentric but I usually use the GUI that was attended to the engine when I bought it. Maybe there is some shortcomming for the few who run engine-engine matches, but for the big bunch that use the programs main feature it is realy enough with the few scoring you get from a pgn-file (??,?,?!,<none>,!,!!). If the GUI in addition have the ability to import Black and White into a repertoire for the engineplayer so you can use a single book for both color when training, I think all may needs should be taken care of. Odd Gunnar
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