Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 13:46:13 03/03/06
Go up one level in this thread
On March 03, 2006 at 16:24:49, Odd Gunnar Malin wrote: >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 Suppose that a move is marked !! but your engine loses when choosing that move ten times in a row (a very real possibility if it is a good move but your engine does not know the plan). Wouldn't it be nice to have a book format that understands statistical inferences and knows it ought to switch to something else?
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