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Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice
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Ronald de Man



Joined: 28 Feb 2012
Posts: 914
PostPost subject: Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice    Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:36 am Reply to topic Reply with quote
hgm wrote:
Well, you can boldface the entire specs, if you want, but that won't succeed in highlighting the word 'user' anywhere. That seems to spring entirely from your imagination.

I'd call it common sense.

Quote:
Quote:
Sure you can tell me that you don't care what the protocol author thinks you should do with the information you get. However, relying on behavior not required by the protocol is simply broken.

I dont think that washes. To do things some (most?) users want, like printing PVs, you must rely on the engine sending you those PVs. As sending PVs is not required by the protocol, in your philosophy any GUI that would print PVs should be considered 'broken', and good GUIs should never show the user any PVs.

I am saying relying on behaviour not required by the protocol. A GUI should not depend for its proper funtioning on engine behavior going beyond what the protocol requires. If it does, then that is broken. It's fine if you use engine info for improving presentation. It is broken if you need such info (not required by the spec) or the GUI won't work properly.

Quote:
The title of this thread contains the phrase 'bad UCI practice'. That is not the same as 'Non-compliance', right? It is the task of engine developers to use the protocol in such a way that their product becomes useful. And I want to draw attention to the fact that not sending the currmove infos, or delaying it to far beyond the recommendation by the specs author, damages the usefullnes of the engine.

In so far as it "damages" the usefulness of the engine in the sense that the GUI now has no way of knowing what moves are legal in chess, then you are really asking developers to cater for the inadequacy of a GUI whose primary function is to be used for chess (or is this primary function again my imagination?).

Really, only very few people (me included) care about variants. What you require from variant engines is for you to decide. But a GUI should work just fine with regular chess engines that comply with the protocol.

Quote:
Actually it is better to recommendate them to stay away from UCI and use WB protocol, which solves all issues satisfactorily. It is just that there already exist quite a few UCI engines fro Xiangqi and Shogi.

Then ask their authors to let their engines communicate the legal moves?

Quote:
So engine authors that are interested in making there engine run well on other GUIs should rather think for themselves what would be optimal behavior, rather than blindly following recommendations in the specs...

Yes, but requesting them to communicate the set of legal moves using currmove within the first few 200ms just so that the GUI can learn what are the legal moves in chess, is just a bit odd imho. As you wrote earlier:
hgm wrote:
I think it is a mistake for engines to cater to defects in GUIs, like it is a mistake to let GUIs cater to non-compliant engines.

Btw, I'm fine with new or improved or extended protocols. I just think it's a rather ugly hack to use currmove info for determining legal moves. Maybe good enoug for variants, but not for chess.
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Subject Author Date/Time
Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:00 am
      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Martin Sedlak Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:12 am
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:36 am
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Martin Sedlak Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:25 am
      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:13 am
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Martin Sedlak Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:38 am
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:55 am
                        Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Martin Sedlak Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:37 am
                              Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:32 pm
                                    Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Ronald de Man Fri Apr 20, 2012 6:49 pm
                                          Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:46 pm
                                                Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Ronald de Man Sat Apr 21, 2012 3:09 am
                                                      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:35 am
                                                            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Ronald de Man Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:36 am
                                                                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Sat Apr 21, 2012 6:14 pm
                                                                        Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Ronald de Man Sun Apr 22, 2012 1:22 am
                                                                              Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:40 am
                                                                                    Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:03 am
                                                                                          Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Ed Schroder Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:03 am
                                                                                          Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:14 pm
                                          Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Marco Costalba Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:01 am
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Gary Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:00 pm
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Marco Costalba Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:07 pm
                        Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:25 pm
                              Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:31 pm
                                    Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:04 pm
                                    Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Marco Costalba Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:55 am
                                          Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Sat Apr 21, 2012 12:44 pm
                                                Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Marco Costalba Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:16 pm
                                                      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Uri Blass Sat Apr 21, 2012 3:19 pm
      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:29 am
      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Don Dailey Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:12 pm
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:09 pm
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Don Dailey Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:21 pm
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Miguel A. Ballicora Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:35 pm
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:52 pm
      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Joona Kiiski Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:30 pm
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Don Dailey Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:11 pm
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice H.G.Muller Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:15 pm
                        Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Don Dailey Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:22 pm
                  Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Sam Hamilton Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:22 pm
                        Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Don Dailey Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:27 pm
      Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Julien MARCEL Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:35 pm
            Re: Stockfish, info currmove and bad UCI practice Don Dailey Sat Apr 21, 2012 3:17 pm
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