Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 13:48:02 05/27/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 27, 1999 at 15:51:59, Prakash Das wrote: >Well, I still don't understand the point of this "world championship" then. Perhaps you should read a book with computer-chess history. > Sure >, you can call it "hey, if nothing it will be fun", a "test of systems", etc. >But what are exactly is this exercise trying to prove? I do not think I tries to prove anything. >If program A on hardware >B, beats program D on hardware E - does that say much about A compared to B? It is imposible to compare programs directly. Programs do not play by themselves, they need a computer to run. >This belies the principles of science - you have to have a uniform platform >for all participants to make any kind of judgement. > Nobody is trying to make a judgement. First of all, many entries for the WCCC are developed for different plattforms. For example, Cray Blitz won two championships running on a super Cray machine, having hardware advantage over most competitors. It would not run on other machines, because most of it is in Cray Assembly Language, and it is designed to take advantage of that particular architecture. And even if all the programs can run on the same kind of computers, it is not clear which equal is most equal for everyone. It is very posible that, given the same time controls, one program performs better on faster machines relative to the other programs. Which uniform platform do you take? > Someone said it is a test of "systems". Everything is a system - a >philosophical concept to a microwave oven to a method of planting trees. >Why call this a world championship at all .. why not simply, some kind of >"fair"? I mean, to draw scietific conclusions on such a basis is impractical. > The WCCC is not a scientific experiment. It is an interesting contest. Well, if you are not interested you are free to not follow it. > There is no doubt that the latest programs will all do well given their owners >will land up with super hardware. Hey, what a surprise! And invariably the >programs that look bad are either the older ones, or the ones whose owners >could/would not bring the best hardware. > > Considering that the results of this "world championship" will be used for >marketing purposes, perhaps the organizers should have made it obligatory on >each particpant to print some kind of following statement in case of a marketing >advertisement: > > "This championship had participants using their own hardware. Because of the >non-uniform nature of the hardware.. etc.. the results cannot be used to draw >wide conclusions." > > Yes, there is nothing wrong in having fun, but don't call it a world >championship. Equality in the name of science I demand :) In the name of science? Who is invoking the name of science? Why not call it a world championship?
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