A Common Sense Proposal to all Vas & Rybka Doubters

[Graham Banks]

George,

If nobody bothers to give your post a serious response, please don't misinterpret that.

It is, as you say in your language, "bullshit".

Tell me Zach - what will you do if you're proven to be wrong?
You guys have caused such a stink over this issue, that your names would likely be tarnished in the computer chess scene forever. It would be difficult for anybody to take any of you seriously ever again.

[bnemias]

I think the side supporting Rybka has caused more stink than the side that just posed some questions. It could have been very tame if the threads didn't get so emotionally cluttered.

The post that led to severe moderation of a thread, turned out to be quite accurate judging from later discussion. Maybe some thicker skin would have helped, because it was really funny, IMO.

[Terry McCracken]

George,

If nobody bothers to give your post a serious response, please don't misinterpret that.

It is, as you say in your language, "bullshit".

Tell me Zach - what will you do if you're proven to be wrong?
You guys have caused such a stink over this issue, that your names would likely be tarnished in the computer chess scene forever. It would be difficult for anybody to take any of you seriously ever again.

You ok? All that gas must be heavy?

[Terry McCracken]

Bob

He's not really a primary player in this at this point. It should be left to Zach and the others who are gathering evidence to present it.

After the stuff i read that he said today, i was shocked. I want to see what he says after a one on one with Vas- sort of a Rybka- Crafty matchup, so to speak.

What have I said that is shocking? That you will not "accidentally" produce a couple of hundred lines of identical code here, a couple of hundred lines there? That is all I have stated from the beginning. _IF_ there is duplicate code to any significant extent (not single lines, but blocks of code) then there is no way it is an "accident". If that is shocking, not much I can say. Anybody that deals with large numbers of programming assignments on a regular basis will say the same.

This is no accident but also proves nothing.
No accident because programmers do not start from scratch but start from known ideas that they read.

If the task is to write chess programs when people start from no idea that they read then you can expect more difference but if people learn about bitboards and learn tricks to write faster firstone function then you cannot
blame them for not being original and writing a slower code.

firstone is only one example so it does not seem obvious to me that few hundrends of lines of equivalent code is a proof for using copy and paste
without looking at the code(I need to look at the lines to decide).

Here is an example about different bitboard programs that is not the case of fruit and rybka because fruit is not a bitboard program.

Based on looking at the code of strelka
one bitboard dictate many bitboards so if one bitboard is the same many bitboards are going to be the same.
If you use A1=0,B1=1,...H1=7,A2=8,...H8=63 you can expect arrays of bitboard of the squares that the king control to be the same and you have 64 numbers(squares that the king control at A1 squares that the king control at B1,....)

Same is for squares that the knight control and squares that the pawns control and for bitboards that tell you information about blocking squares and continue in this way.
All these constants can be easily hundreds of lines of code so you get hundrends of lines that are basically the same.

You can have different functions to generate them but
the programmer may simply use constant array and in this case the constant array is the same.

Uri

Thank God for people like Uri, Dann and Chris Whittington who are looking at this subject with no bias and no agendas.

Best, Uri

Which god?

[Graham Banks]

You ok? All that gas must be heavy?

I'm fine thanks Terry. How about you?

[Zach Wegner]

Tell me Zach - what will you do if you're proven to be wrong?
You guys have caused such a stink over this issue, that your names would likely be tarnished in the computer chess scene forever. It would be difficult for anybody to take any of you seriously ever again.

Graham,

What exactly have I done? I have asked perfectly reasonable questions. I never claimed to be absolutely sure of anything. If I am proven to be wrong, then I will simply admit that I was wrong. I am not an egomaniac, and I am not afraid of being incorrect. What's so hard to understand about this issue? There is a tendency in this community to inflate simple matters into community-wide commotions. It has happened before countless times over post editing, aliases, mod impeachment, etc. etc. _et cetera_. Some people here seem to have a hard time distinguishing the signal from the noise. I have been completely forthcoming about my motives and goals, so as far as I am concerned, you are just trying to stir up conflict.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would not "take me seriously" because of the discussions in the past week or so (are these perhaps the feelings that you are having now?). If they do, that's their decision and I could care less. I am in computer chess because I like it, and any conversations I have in this forum are because I want to. My contributions to the community speak for themselves, but there will always be those who need to put age or envy or some such nonsense into the equation. You and your colleagues are welcome to not take me seriously anymore, a decision that George has already appeared to make.

And for those that are still taking George's proposal seriously, _of course_ I would be willing to talk to Vas one on one (at least in public), it's what I've been hoping would happen this whole time. Believe it or not, Vas has yet to answer one specific concern that we have had. I really do not understand why such inane posts receive any attention at all.

[Graham Banks]

Tell me Zach - what will you do if you're proven to be wrong?
You guys have caused such a stink over this issue, that your names would likely be tarnished in the computer chess scene forever. It would be difficult for anybody to take any of you seriously ever again.

Graham,

What exactly have I done? I have asked perfectly reasonable questions. I never claimed to be absolutely sure of anything. If I am proven to be wrong, then I will simply admit that I was wrong.

Good enough for me Zach. Seemed like you were absolutely convinced that Vas has broken the rules. That's why I asked.
You're 20 and very talented. I didn't want to think that you could be ruining your reputation in the field so early.
However, that's assuming that you're wrong. Let's see what happens.

Cheers, Graham.

[Terry McCracken]

You ok? All that gas must be heavy?

I'm fine thanks Terry. How about you?

I'm carbon free

[Graham Banks]

You ok? All that gas must be heavy?

I'm fine thanks Terry. How about you?

I'm carbon free

Good to hear!

[tiger]

Tell me Zach - what will you do if you're proven to be wrong?
You guys have caused such a stink over this issue, that your names would likely be tarnished in the computer chess scene forever. It would be difficult for anybody to take any of you seriously ever again.

Graham,

What exactly have I done? I have asked perfectly reasonable questions. I never claimed to be absolutely sure of anything. If I am proven to be wrong, then I will simply admit that I was wrong.

Good enough for me Zach. Seemed like you were absolutely convinced that Vas has broken the rules. That's why I asked.
You're 20 and very talented. I didn't want to think that you could be ruining your reputation in the field so early.
However, that's assuming that you're wrong. Let's see what happens.

Cheers, Graham.

Thank God, Zach has Graham's blessing now.



// Christophe