Marco steps down as Stockfish maintainer

[lucasart]

An example you should be interested in: only using 8 bits of the hash entry to store depth makes it impossible to store depths > 128 ply (ONE_PLY being 2)

64 in fact. there are negative depths in QS. so the patch is already bogus with depths above 64. plus using 16 bits will surely backfire one day. besides, the testing was not done correctly mixing new stuff with hacky optimization, in an attempt to push the whole branch across the finish line.

I also agree with Marco. He has made it clear to Ron that he was not going to commit his mess of crap, which Ron ignored. Pure waste of time and fishtest resources. The guy is obsessed with his TT packing, and never listened to any comment from Marco. I dont think we can work with people like that.

The amount of resources that have been wasted by Ron and his idee-fix of packing TT entries is phenomenal and sets a new record. He has beaten Uri Blass in fishtest trolling, which is no small achievement

The hardest job of a maintainer, besides the actual coding and testing, is to say NO. Marco has done a very good job, and, if anything, he is guilty of having caved under pressure and accepted crappy patches to please people who insist too much, rather than the opposite.

[Sedat Canbaz]

Only fools work for free !

I fully disagree with you!

You have no right to say 'fool' for people, who work for free!!

Remember that,
No any 'fool' has a such talent to create the World's strongest engine !!!


BTW,
In our chess engine development, there are 2 kind of people:
1) Commercial engine programmers
2) Freeware engine programmers

With respect to the both groups,
The 1st option: Commercial authors see chess as MONEY!
The 2nd option: Freeware authors see chess as HOBBY and for them:
- 'HOBBY' is more important than MONEY !

Hopes this helps...

[arjuntemurnikar]

An example you should be interested in: only using 8 bits of the hash entry to store depth makes it impossible to store depths > 128 ply (ONE_PLY being 2)

64 in fact. there are negative depths in QS. so the patch is already bogus with depths above 64. plus using 16 bits will surely backfire one day. besides, the testing was not done correctly mixing new stuff with hacky optimization, in an attempt to push the whole branch across the finish line.

I also agree with Marco. He has made it clear to Ron that he was not going to commit his mess of crap, which Ron ignored. Pure waste of time and fishtest resources. The guy is obsessed with his TT packing, and never listened to any comment from Marco. I dont think we can work with people like that.

The amount of resources that have been wasted by Ron and his idee-fix of packing TT entries is phenomenal and sets a new record. He has beaten Uri Blass in fishtest trolling, which is no small achievement

The hardest job of a maintainer, besides the actual coding and testing, is to say NO. Marco has done a very good job, and, if anything, he is guilty of having caved under pressure and accepted crappy patches to please people who insist too much, rather than the opposite.

To be fair to Ron, Marco never clearly explained his reasons properly -- for example what you state above that it is bogus above depth 64, etc. If you see the github thread on the pull request, Ron was the only one making points in his defense and Marco made none. Since others do not know the full story, obviously they would side with Ron as he explained his reasons carefully and his test showed +7 elo. Since Ron put a lot of effort into his patch and proved +7 elo, he at least deserves a good explanation for why his patch should not be accepted.

[syzygy]

An example you should be interested in: only using 8 bits of the hash entry to store depth makes it impossible to store depths > 128 ply (ONE_PLY being 2)

64 in fact. there are negative depths in QS. so the patch is already bogus with depths above 64.

True, I simplified a bit. But I think the patch now shifts values so that the current range of -7 ... 120 fits in 0 ... 127. But it is clear that this is a limitation that is not justified only by saying "it passed the test, so you have to apply".

[mwyoung]

Only fools work for free !

I fully disagree with you!

You have no right to say 'fool' for people, who work for free!!

Remember that,
No any 'fool' has a such talent to create the World's strongest engine !!!


BTW,
In our chess engine development, there are 2 kind of people:
1) Commercial engine programmers
2) Freeware engine programmers

With respect to the both groups,
The 1st option: Commercial authors see chess as MONEY!
The 2nd option: Freeware authors see chess as HOBBY and for them:
- 'HOBBY' is more important than MONEY !

Hopes this helps...

There are a lot of people that work for free in computer chess. Some chess developers, members here who run rating list site for the public. Members who compile the programs for the public. The list goes on...

They do this because they like computer chess...

- 'HOBBY' is more important than MONEY !-Sedat Canbaz

[Uri Blass]

An example you should be interested in: only using 8 bits of the hash entry to store depth makes it impossible to store depths > 128 ply (ONE_PLY being 2)

64 in fact. there are negative depths in QS. so the patch is already bogus with depths above 64. plus using 16 bits will surely backfire one day. besides, the testing was not done correctly mixing new stuff with hacky optimization, in an attempt to push the whole branch across the finish line.

I also agree with Marco. He has made it clear to Ron that he was not going to commit his mess of crap, which Ron ignored. Pure waste of time and fishtest resources. The guy is obsessed with his TT packing, and never listened to any comment from Marco. I dont think we can work with people like that.

The amount of resources that have been wasted by Ron and his idee-fix of packing TT entries is phenomenal and sets a new record. He has beaten Uri Blass in fishtest trolling, which is no small achievement

The hardest job of a maintainer, besides the actual coding and testing, is to say NO. Marco has done a very good job, and, if anything, he is guilty of having caved under pressure and accepted crappy patches to please people who insist too much, rather than the opposite.

I do not claim that marco had to accept the patch but Ron clearly did better job of explaining his reasons in
https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish/pull/243


Ron said:
"This is not true. I listened to and made every effort to make adjustments to conform to your desires."

For example Ron said in one of the later posts:
" I switched from renaming some functions, parameters, constants, and variables (to make the code clearer) to following Marco’s suggestion to leave as many names the same as possible."

Marco replied

"Renames and code reshuffle should not be part of the patch. Patch should be minimal."

Without looking at the patch it seems that Marco ignored the comment of Ron that he switched from renaming functions parameters and constants to make the code clearer.

[lkaufman]

Only fools work for free !

I fully disagree with you!

You have no right to say 'fool' for people, who work for free!!

Remember that,
No any 'fool' has a such talent to create the World's strongest engine !!!


BTW,
In our chess engine development, there are 2 kind of people:
1) Commercial engine programmers
2) Freeware engine programmers

With respect to the both groups,
The 1st option: Commercial authors see chess as MONEY!
The 2nd option: Freeware authors see chess as HOBBY and for them:
- 'HOBBY' is more important than MONEY !

Hopes this helps...

There is a third group, those who see it as a profitable hobby. Mark and I belong to that group. We can both make much more money per hour doing other things, so clearly we aren't doing this primarily for profit. But we also can't justify foregoing lots of other profitable work without making some money from it. I suppose you can say that the first twenty or thirty hours per week we work for free because we enjoy it, but beyond that we want to be paid. I don't know which other engines besides Komodo are in this category.

[K I Hyams]

A new hope for Robert Houdart and the Komodo team !

Fully agree ! Free stuff is valueless....................
.........................................Only fools work for free !

Only a fool does not understand the difference between cost and value.

[Henk]

Only fools work for free !

- 'HOBBY' is more important than MONEY !

Hopes this helps...

Unless you don't have Money.

If you take Chess programming seriously it is a full time job. So you can't do that for free. Unless you copy other peoples ideas and code, but we don't like that do we.

If there was no Glaurung there was no Stockfish. Glaurung has not been created by Marco.

[Sedat Canbaz]

There are a lot of people that work for free in computer chess. Some chess developers, members here who run rating list site for the public. Members who compile the programs for the public. The list goes on...

They do this because they like computer chess...

- 'HOBBY' is more important than MONEY !-Sedat Canbaz

+1

Just I'd like to add

Standings is based on SCCT's Top 20 MP Engines:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/?page_id=89

As we see, the Free work is leading...with clear 4 Elo points !!
My BIG Congratulations to Freeware Engine Programers !!

Code: Select all

    Program                             Score     %    Av.Op.    Elo    +   -    Draws

  1 Free                           : 2522.0/5000  50.4   3298   3302    8   8   34.4 %
  2 Commercial                     : 2478.0/5000  49.6   3302   3298    8   8   34.4 %

Btw, looking at CCRL (4O/4) Rating list:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/

I noticed that CCRL tested 482 engines so far, really a huge number, great job as usual and many thanks for the free efforts to CCRL team!!

So...I noticed also in their list,
There are only 18 commercial engines, that means approx. 4% of the Authors work commercially

So according to Anil
96 % of the rest Programmers are fool )))

In other words, if Anil's statement is true in reality,
All who work free (Freeware Programmers; Engine Testers; Book Authors; Benchmark Managers etc...) should be changed...
And since today, our work should become commercially ... hehe...what a nice idea, I never thought about the new idea before... )))