Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 22:17:53 10/31/99
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On October 31, 1999 at 18:57:52, Heiko Mikala wrote:
>Hi Christophe!
>
>On October 31, 1999 at 18:10:33, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On October 31, 1999 at 04:04:41, Peter McKenzie wrote:
>>
>>>To be honest I find the tone of your post somewhat distasteful.
>>
>>
>>Really Peter?
>
>Christophe, I felt the same when I read your headline and your post.
>
>I think you have a big sympathy bonus at the moment, being the underdog that
>beats each and every one of the "big ones". I can fully understand your
>enthusiasm. Nevertheless I think that your post and especially the big headline
>were very rude.
Rudeness is something that seems forbidden to some (me for example) but very
well tolerated when it comes from some others (Bob mainly).
I don't see exactly why I should refrain to express my feelings when Bob feels
free to attack "commercial" programmers each time he has the opportunity, or to
send insults to anybody he doesn't like.
I don't care about my sympathy bonus in fact. It's simply my pleasure today to
say that this guy has an average program and that I will not show more respect
to him than he shows for me as a "commercial" programmer.
I am fed up to hear that he is the good guy because he gives his "work" away for
free, and commercial programmers are the bad guys because they keep their stuff
secret and STEAL things from Crafty.
I'm silently putting up with this for more than 3 years now.
I'm still wondering what are the algorithmic novelties Bob Hyatt brought to the
world. What are his personnal inventions?
If I am the bad guy, then my image is already so damaged that I have nothing to
lose to open my heart and say what I think anyway.
Yes, I am the bad one.
Yes I am the greedy one trying to make money from my work.
Yes, I am the arrogant one because I point out that the "good guy" has an
average program.
Yes I am the blasphemous one because I dare to pronounce the name of the guru.
But let me tell you that I would happily exchange a dozen emails from Bob
against just one word from the following people:
Ed Schröder
Richard Lang
Frans Morsch
Johan de Koening
Amir Ban
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen
Christian Donninger
They are the real heroes. They are real creators. Most of them are my current
"enemies" on the board, but I know they are bright and I respect each of them. I
know that they have worked beyond the already known algorithms and you can be
sure that each of them has found smart new ones.
Do you think creativity comes from nowhere? It is blood and tears, believe me.
It means nights trying to make an idea work, it means thinking about it 24 hours
a day, even when you are asleep. It means neglecting entire parts of your life
to save time for your creativity work. It means banging your head on the nearest
wall when you stupidly lose a game.
It means waking up in the middle of the night with a bright idea just to
discover after several hours that it does not work. Repeat this 100 times to get
just ONE idea that works.
It means putting yourself in danger. Unless you have an ideal situation, if you
want to spend enough time on chess programming you need to take risks. You might
very well lose your job. Or your girlfriend. You are going to spend too much
financial resources in new hardware, books and Internet connection time.
All of this happened to me.
I cannot be sure, but I would bet most of this happened to the aforementionned
people.
Now take some guy that collects all the known working algorithms, put them all
together in a program named Crafty, and make the sources public.
Well, that's a nice idea. Thanks a lot. It is a fine pedagogic tool.
But if the guy begins to shoot at programmers that do creative work, insult some
of them and pretend that they steal ideas from him, excuse me but I can't
refrain from saying:
Remember, your program is at least 100 elo points behind ours. Each of us has
done at least 10 times more creative work than you have. You have spent 30 years
on this and you are still well behind.
Why am I so crazy that I shoot at the good guy?
As you see I'm very very upset.
Christophe
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