The near future of computer chess

[Terry McCracken]

You're all hopeless. Only idiots make the simple, complex.

Terry-

very sad to see you log in, offer nothing interesting, just insults of everybody you (even slightly) disagree with...

i wish i could help you..
my 'guess' would be":
you're drinking heavily...?

(that certainly brings out the bad/aggressive/derogatory side of normally civil people.)

if what i'm suggesting is true..i recommend try this:
log in once' sober' and post something substantial or interesting in a kind/gentle manner.

this would go a long way...

Did you stop beating your wife?

[kranium]

Did you stop beating your wife?

Yes...more than 2 years ago.

I also stopped drinking...you?

[Terry McCracken]

Did you stop beating your wife?

Yes...more than 2 years ago.

I also stopped drinking...you?

I don't drink. What's your excuse?

[kranium]

I don't drink.

you're just naturally belligerent?

[Terry McCracken]

I don't drink.

you're just naturally belligerent?

You're naturally a jerk?

[geots]

Right, the main and original sources were written by these funny decembrists/octobrists, independently of what Norm or others were modifying. All Ippolit/Robbolito/Igorrit/IvanHoe original sources are theirs, "revolutionaries", are original, are their development, with IvanHoe being their last and best result for a year already. Houdini has nothing to do with this, in fact they seem to be very bothered that someone stole and sells their code.

That's very interesting, can you tell me more exactly what they said, or where to read it? What did they expect though, since they did not put any restrictions on the early Ippo releases? That's practically begging someone to take and sell the code with improvements. Surely anyone smart enough to write the Ippo code is smart enough to foresee that this would happen. Perhaps now they'll study the Houdini code, and modify Ivanhoe in the appropriate places to make it as strong as Houdini or stronger. That would be perfectly fair, "turnabout is fair play".

Larry

On their site, some time ago. Something like they saw a nick of someone on a forum, which they knew belongs to Houdart, who promoted Houdini. And that the forum protects the capitalist cheater Houdart, something like that, if I understood something of their peculiar language.

A longer time ago they stated that for a period of time they will not release a much stronger IvanHoe on purpose. I forgot the reasons, but they implied, if I understood something of their speech, that they have a much stronger version.

Kai

Listen to Kai- not just every sentence, but also every word of it is true.

I have myself read everything he is saying was written by them. These guys don't have the relationship with Kranium or Robert that some think.
But unlike many here- instead of bitching and trying to defame someone, they think the best answer is to pass him by producing better and/or stronger engines.

Has anyone ever stopped to think that if their ideas and so on were stolen, and that is how IvanHoe for one became so strong- somewhere along the line they would sooner or later go commercial with something. Which they never will. Or keep source code hidden- which they never will. Can't you see, no matter what you think about their engines- they offer you their code and you still cannot beat them. That is all they are interested in. Showing that except for Vas, they are just better than you. Throwing clones or illegal engines ag. you defeats their purpose. Until you understand how their minds work, you have no hope of beating them. And they are not bad guys- much more conscious of not hurting others feelings than you would ever imagine.


gts/CCRL

"Showing that except for Vas, they are just better than you."

I apologize for that statement as it is not correct. They are highly impressed with Richard and Critter / Tord, his partners and Stockfish- and they look down on no programmers. Not one. They appreciate the ability of each of you- as I do.

It is not a business to them- just the same as most of us- they enjoy it as a hobby and keep that in perspective. They are no better or worse than any of us, I guess I am trying to say.

Illness and blown boxes have kept me from testing for around 1.5 yrs. Will be able to start back soon, and I look forward to it. You guys have certainly improved your engines by leaps and bounds in my absence, and I look forward to testing them. I have the respect for each and every one of you that you certainly deserve. Tho nothing has changed in the sense that I still favor testing the freewares that I don't think sometimes get the recognition they deserve. Tho my testing is certainly not limited to them.
There is not one programmer in CCRLs rating list that I do not respect the work of.


Wish the Best to Each of You-

gts

[Don]

It's not like that at all. I personally don't believe that you have any right to "own" an idea. I am not a capitalist like you must be if you believe that. U.S. law makes ideas something that can be bought and sold and protected but I don't buy into that.

So now if some disreputable people come up with good ideas and publish them, then I have no obligation to refrain from using them and put myself at a disadvantage. If that were the case then I guess I am a hypocrite for using alpha/beta pruning and Hash tables in my program. That's how stupid and utterly ridiculous your line of reasoning is here.

No you are not a hypocrite for using alpha-beta or LMR.
You are a hypocrite for using ideas that are obtained by the means you personally believe are unethical.

I never said that I believe obtaining ideas from these programs are unethical. Show me where I said that.

I said that the verbatim copying of code from other programs is unethical. Now if I copied code from other programs, that would be unethical and it wouldn't make any difference if the code was from legitimate programs or the illegitimate programs.

That makes you unethical in your own system of values.

Except that you failed to show where this is a violation of my own ethics. To make your case you need to show some quote from me where I claim it is unethical to obtain or use ideas from other programs and you won't find that.

You are an unscrupulous and devious person for making the above statement in bold which is a complete misrepresentation of my position. You say, "ideas that obtained by the means you personally believe are unethical" which recasts my position into a form that you can attack, you are being dishonest for doing this.

If you want to have a constructive debate on this, please stop being devious and dishonest so that we can focus on the actual issues.

And ethics seams to be totally strange to you.

You are not one who should talk about ethics after the way you dishonestly keep misrepresenting our position on the usage of ideas. Also there is this matter of how you desperately need to equate the use of ideas with source code theft. These are 2 separate things but your whole argument falls into pieces unless you can make a strong connection between the two things. You have to keep doing this over and over with deceptive statement like the above because it isn't working for you.

[Thomas Mayer]

Hi Sune,

Of course Ed has a good point.

A professional programmer in the year 2011 would not start building an engine from scratch when there are so many very strong open source engines out there.
Nobody does that in this day an age, it just isn't best practice of modern software development.

??? How do you program ? Especially a compareable simple problem like teaching a computer to play chess ? I mean it isn't very complicate to get something that plays chess when you inform yourself about the common technics. Of course it's far more difficult to get it strong but if you want to take part in a tournament that is the work you have to do to win.
When it is about science of course you would chose one of the open source engines to prove your theory, this was done quite often in the past with crafty and later with Fruit - nothing wrong with that, a good scientist wouldn't change the name at all, because there is no need for that.

I don't know whether you program for a living, for me it's part of my business, and so far every new project started with a blank screen, only looking into my own old sources or into some programmers forums how things can be done.

Greets, Thomas

[Laskos]

It's not like that at all. I personally don't believe that you have any right to "own" an idea. I am not a capitalist like you must be if you believe that. U.S. law makes ideas something that can be bought and sold and protected but I don't buy into that.

So now if some disreputable people come up with good ideas and publish them, then I have no obligation to refrain from using them and put myself at a disadvantage. If that were the case then I guess I am a hypocrite for using alpha/beta pruning and Hash tables in my program. That's how stupid and utterly ridiculous your line of reasoning is here.

No you are not a hypocrite for using alpha-beta or LMR.
You are a hypocrite for using ideas that are obtained by the means you personally believe are unethical.

I never said that I believe obtaining ideas from these programs are unethical. Show me where I said that.

I said that the verbatim copying of code from other programs is unethical. Now if I copied code from other programs, that would be unethical and it wouldn't make any difference if the code was from legitimate programs or the illegitimate programs.

That makes you unethical in your own system of values.

Except that you failed to show where this is a violation of my own ethics. To make your case you need to show some quote from me where I claim it is unethical to obtain or use ideas from other programs and you won't find that.

You are an unscrupulous and devious person for making the above statement in bold which is a complete misrepresentation of my position. You say, "ideas that obtained by the means you personally believe are unethical" which recasts my position into a form that you can attack, you are being dishonest for doing this.

If you want to have a constructive debate on this, please stop being devious and dishonest so that we can focus on the actual issues.

And ethics seams to be totally strange to you.

You are not one who should talk about ethics after the way you dishonestly keep misrepresenting our position on the usage of ideas. Also there is this matter of how you desperately need to equate the use of ideas with source code theft. These are 2 separate things but your whole argument falls into pieces unless you can make a strong connection between the two things. You have to keep doing this over and over with deceptive statement like the above because it isn't working for you.

Don, be more nuanced. We all accept that taking ideas is fair. Only by doing that, one could get into solving some experiments (tuning), maybe very similar to what is already done. We have to separate the theoretical part, "ideas", from the experiment. Do I have to re-make all the experiments, knowing the published results? If needed experiments (tuning) are already done, I think it's fair to use to every degree one needs the results of these experiments. That is how research in sciences is working. Then, as is natural to happen, even a completely original engine like Komodo falls into Fruit/Rybka branch, as shown here:

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... &start=163

This is a natural convergence of a way to build a strong engine. I am a theorist by nature, and if some already done experiments are useful to me, then I would not hesitate, and it's a common practice in sciences, to use even literally the results of the experiments. It's even absurd to tune for months some values which were already derived experimentally by others.

Therefore it's fair to take ideas, and it's also fair to use as much experimental data as possible even literally, if it is of use. Experimental data is an intrinsic property of the theoretically described system, once the experimental data is shown, no one can claim it as his own, no more than the value of the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit or the rest mass of the electron. On the programming forum I saw one guy who presented his engine, as far as I understood, he was building it pretty fairly, but you guys came there to teach some moralistic, pretty wrong lessons, discouraging him to the point of abandoning the project. The lesson is that one shouldn't bother asking you.

Kai

[Milos]

I don't know whether you program for a living, for me it's part of my business, and so far every new project started with a blank screen, only looking into my own old sources or into some programmers forums how things can be done.

BS.
Most of commercial programming is just coping and pasting, from their own sources, from sources of projects within their company, from sources their company acquired in legal or illegal way, from open-source community and from public domain.
Maybe you personally are different but majority of the commercial programmers certainly is not.