Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 01:40:30 06/03/99
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On June 03, 1999 at 00:07:02, Prakash Das wrote: >On June 02, 1999 at 23:52:11, Prakash Das wrote: > >>On June 02, 1999 at 15:30:41, Tania Devora wrote: >> >>> >>> >>>What is the hardware for the 9th Wccc99 ? >>> >>>There are many strong computer programs that not go to participate in this >>>World championship , like Chessmaster6000, and many others. >>> >>>I think that this is not a fair play . Cilkchess and others programs will run is >>>a Super machines, is evident that could win easy. >>> >>>For me all the programs, will run in the same computer with the same ram memory. >>> >>>Is the only way to see the real strengh of the program. >>> >>>For example Fritz5.32 in a Pentium III 500 MHZ could beat Fritz5.32 (pentium 200 >>>mmx) , for a big score. >> >> >> Tania, you are wasting your breath. A while back, I started a thread called >>"Uneven hardware for wmcc?" in which I questioned the purpose of this >>self-congratulatory exercise. >> Most of teh replies went like this: it's fun, it's like creating a Mount >>Olympus of chess programs, we are coming with the meanest baddest machine, etc >>etc. No one really cared about addressing the real point: what the hell is going >>to be accomplished. >> So, sit back, and get ready for a few yawns. You will see the same old programs >>which are at "top of charts" decimate the others (not bad programs necessarily) >>running on weak hardware. >> If we tried to solve cancer in this "scientific" manner, there's no hope for >>living beings. > > Well, following up on myself. I thought this was obvious, but as in my previous >post on that other thread, let's say program A on big bad hardware B, beat >program D on weaker hardware E. What did this prove? Wins and losses are all >relative, and so will be the standings later on. What kind of Mount Olympus did >we scale (Karinsdad)?? It is a mirage where we appear to have created a super >"playing system". But this would have achieved by beating another on weaker >hardware. Next day, the result will be different. > > Let's hold a WMCC everyday with changing hardware. That way, we will create >tons of mount Olympus! Please explain how machines like Belle, Hitech, and Deep Thought could have come into existence and competed if every event is a uniform platform event. Please explain how this event could have happened at all before the PC architecture became standard. Please explain how any programmer can benefit by using any architecture other than Intel, if this event standardizes on Intel. Why would anybody ever program for a Mac, an Alpha, a parallel machine, etc., if all you get for your trouble is disqualified at worst and a time handicap at best? Wouldn't it be something of a blow to innovation in this field if you can't take advantage of something very fast, yet challenging to program for? I mean, why program for four CPU's if you'll just get disqualified or have your time limit reduced by a factor of four? And of course portability goes all to hell in this scenerio, since the only legal way to go faster would be to write in assembly language. But hey, that can be solved by making everyone write in BASIC. This reminds me of that Kurt Vonnegut short story where strong people have to go around wearing weights so they won't have an unfair advantage over weak people, and smart people have to be distracted constantly by loud noises so they won't have an unfair advantage over less smart people. bruce
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