Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 22:56:47 11/01/99
Go up one level in this thread
On November 01, 1999 at 01:17:53, Christophe Theron wrote: >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? I don't know what algorithms Bob invented. I do know that he has had much influence on some new programmers such as myself. When I started doing computer chess there were a series of articles I read, and several of them were about Cray Blitz. These articles had a lot of good ideas about a variety of computer chess algorithms and general topics. Bob's articles are extremely good. They are very clear, and he puts a lot of effort into making them accurate and useful. It is possible that he was first to publish many known ideas and invented a few. >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. I don't think it is average. It goes up and down. Sometimes it has good results and sometimes it has bad results. I don't know if it is better or worse than other programs against humans, but the humans seem to enjoy playing it. I think that it can only get better, since he has some strong chess players helping him, and he has a cloud of people surrounding him who are willing to do work for him. >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 Whatever. I like these people, some of them a great deal, but personally I'm just as happy to talk to Peter McKenzie or Martin Zentner, and Martin in particular has an excellent car and is not afraid to go on the boat. >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. Perhaps not just to them. >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. I don't think Crafty is any more a collection of known ideas than any of the rest of them are. >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. I vote this the harshest thing said by anyone in the past week. Also, who cares about Elo points? What a stupid thing to get excited about, I don't understand the preoccupation. >Why am I so crazy that I shoot at the good guy? > >As you see I'm very very upset. Clearly. And hopefully this will all end before people hate each other permanently. I'm not holding out much hope though. Nothing can help us if we all actively dislike each other. bruce
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.