Author: Peter McKenzie
Date: 16:13:20 08/28/99
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'Everyone' knows that Voyager is just crafty with maybe a few minor hacks to the evaluation or search. This issue was examined in depth some months ago. It is easy to take someone elses program, and make a few minor changes to it that significantly alter its playing style bug keep the strength pretty much the same. Just a few lines of code in the Evaluation function will do this. It is also easy to copy large chunks of another program (move generation code, input and output code, make move, undo move, parts of search function etc). I suspect both of these approaches are pretty common, and from a software reuse prespective they are a good idea. There are a few disadvantages to this approach though: 1) The WCCC rules give preference of entry to programs that are 100% original source code. 2) It is hard to significantly improve a program that if don't have a intimate knowledge of the underlying infrastructure. If you copy this infrastructure, you are unlikely to have this knowledge. For programmers such as myself who develop their programs from scratch, it can be a little disheartening to see your program lose to a brand new program. 'How can my program, the result of 5 years hard labour, get smashed by this brand new program that has been written in 2 weeks?' we ask. When I realise that the 'brand new program' is largely just a copy of crafty or some strong mature program, I don't feel so bad :-) cheers, Peter
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