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Subject: Re: Please stop the bickering

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 19:17:20 10/31/99

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On October 31, 1999 at 02:23:47, Ed Schröder wrote:

>Unreasonable to ask.
>
>Not everybody likes to write for a magazine. Writing in CCC is easy, some
>quick notes and that's it. Writing for a magazine is quite different. I did
>it once (1984 I believe) for the dutch computer chess magazine "Computer
>Schaak" when I was asked to explain about Rebel's selective search and
>my own invented A/B algorithm because everybody was surprised to see Rebel
>hitting 6 plies on a TRS-80 1.77 Mhz.
>
>I hated it. I hated it because after 3-4 days of hard work the editors told me
>they didn't understand the contents and they wanted me to do it all over. Later
>much later after version 4.0 (and with the help of the editor) the article was
>ready for publication and frankly I must say that it looked a lot better than my
>first try. I said  never again. The ICCA has asked my several times to
>contribute which I kindly refused for the above reason.
>
>You know, writing good articles requires some talent. I know I don't have it.

Ed,

I have no intention of writing a top-notch chess program.  There's a lot of
people doing this already, and I don't think that becoming another one would be
a very productive use of my time.  There are so many other things to do, and
while computer chess is fun, it's not the only thing that's fun, and I'm sure
that many of those other things pay better! ;-)

So if you decide you want to contribute an article (e.g. for ICCA), but don't
have the time or want to expend the effort to write out four versions until
editors are happy with it, send me an long email with the rough contents, and
I'll turn it into an article, and keep my mouth shut about the contents until
its published.  (Obviously, the journal referees would have to read it.)

This offer is also extended to other commercial programmers who feel like Ed
does about the subject.

Dave



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