Originality and plagiarism

[Graham Banks]

Miguel,
Can I use the moment to ask when will you release a new version of Gaviota

I will soon.

It is flattering that someone is interested in Gaviota.
My goal is to have a "complete" engine before focusing on strength (nice excuse to justify weakness). Gaviota has been lacking king safety and endgame tablebases. I added king safety (that still needs to be tuned) and I have been working on creating gaviota's own egtbs. I made good progress and I wrote a generator that seems to be working nice. Users may not like to generate a another set of TBs to fill up their HDs, but I may add support for some other format (probably not Nalimov). At that point I will probably release version 1.0. What I really want is Gaviota to have their own TBs for whatever competition participates online.

I hope I release a version in the next two months. This is a hobby and some of my schedules are sometimes brutally messed up.

Miguel

Thanks,great news indeed.....
I hope that the learning function will still be present in the upcoming new version

Having the learning function as optional would be even better. Then I could test it for CCRL also.

[michiguel]

Miguel,
Can I use the moment to ask when will you release a new version of Gaviota

I will soon.

It is flattering that someone is interested in Gaviota.
My goal is to have a "complete" engine before focusing on strength (nice excuse to justify weakness). Gaviota has been lacking king safety and endgame tablebases. I added king safety (that still needs to be tuned) and I have been working on creating gaviota's own egtbs. I made good progress and I wrote a generator that seems to be working nice. Users may not like to generate a another set of TBs to fill up their HDs, but I may add support for some other format (probably not Nalimov). At that point I will probably release version 1.0. What I really want is Gaviota to have their own TBs for whatever competition participates online.

I hope I release a version in the next two months. This is a hobby and some of my schedules are sometimes brutally messed up.

Miguel

Thanks,great news indeed.....
I hope that the learning function will still be present in the upcoming new version

Having the learning function as optional would be even better. Then I could test it for CCRL also.

It is optional! (and yes, it will be present in the next version)

You can include something like this in gav.ini

Code: Select all

;-------------
; book info
;-------------

book        = on
book_file   = "c:\path\bookname.bin"
book_learn  = off

;------------------------------------------------
; learning of positions when is out of book.
; learn = on
; will save what just learned,
; use_learned = on 
; will use any previous stored nformation in the file
; learn_file = "/properpath/whatevername.epd"
;------------------------------------------------

learn       = off
use_learned = off
learn_file  = "learn.epd"

And it will use a book without learning of any kind.
If you want to test gaviota, let me know and can answer any question regarding the setup.

Regards,
Miguel

[Graham Banks]

If you want to test gaviota, let me know and can answer any question regarding the setup.

Regards,
Miguel

Hi Miguel,

once you've released your new version, I'll test it for sure.

Cheers, Graham.

[swami]

Gaviota last version always runs out of time when its own king is given a check...

[Tord Romstad]

Borges actually thought that a translation could be better than the original. It was obvious for him that a translation could be a piece or art full of creativity, regardless of the original.

True, but nevertheless, I can't help feeling envious of you, Enrique and Fernandes for being able to read Borges untranslated. How difficult is his language? Would Borges be a good starting point for somebody wanting to learn Spanish?

Nice to see so many fellow Borges fans here!

Tord

[michiguel]

Gaviota last version always runs out of time when its own king is given a check...

I have never seen that...
Can you try to reproduce it? For me, having an engine with no bugs is more important than anything else.

What GUI are you using?

I have the strong feeling that you may see that with a GUI that is not compliant with SAN (Standard algebraic notation). If Gaviota receives Bb5 rather than Bb5+ will not consider it a valid move. If this is the case, Gaviota is right but I may want to make it to accept Bb5 anyway, just to deal with possible broken GUIs.

Miguel

[swami]

Gaviota last version always runs out of time when its own king is given a check...

I have never seen that...
Can you try to reproduce it? For me, having an engine with no bugs is more important than anything else.

What GUI are you using?

I have the strong feeling that you may see that with a GUI that is not compliant with SAN (Standard algebraic notation). If Gaviota receives Bb5 rather than Bb5+ will not consider it a valid move. If this is the case, Gaviota is right but I may want to make it to accept Bb5 anyway, just to deal with possible broken GUIs.

Miguel

Well, You got it right. Arena GUI is used, Gaviota simply doesn't seem to accept moves without "+"(check) in it. Even if its GUI fault for not including "+", the engine shouldn't boycott the game over this

[Graham Banks]

Gaviota last version always runs out of time when its own king is given a check...

I have never seen that...
Can you try to reproduce it? For me, having an engine with no bugs is more important than anything else.

What GUI are you using?

I have the strong feeling that you may see that with a GUI that is not compliant with SAN (Standard algebraic notation). If Gaviota receives Bb5 rather than Bb5+ will not consider it a valid move. If this is the case, Gaviota is right but I may want to make it to accept Bb5 anyway, just to deal with possible broken GUIs.

Miguel

Well, You got it right. Arena GUI is used, Gaviota simply doesn't seem to accept moves without "+"(check) in it. Even if its GUI fault for not including "+", the engine shouldn't boycott the game over this

Good old Arena strikes again!
Arena is very good, but you do strike the odd problem with it.
In contrast, I've had no problems with Matthias's ChessGUI. Hint hint!

[michiguel]

Borges actually thought that a translation could be better than the original. It was obvious for him that a translation could be a piece or art full of creativity, regardless of the original.

True, but nevertheless, I can't help feeling envious of you, Enrique and Fernandes for being able to read Borges untranslated. How difficult is his language? Would Borges be a good starting point for somebody wanting to learn Spanish?

Nice to see so many fellow Borges fans here!

Tord

First of all, I have to say that I have not read as much as I wanted to read.

His spanish is crisp, clear, but once in a while. he used some words that may not very common The most difficult thing is the content, the thoughts... but that is the same in any language. The one thing that is nice is that everything he wrote is short. I am a native speaker but I have to read slowly, but not because of the words. There is a lot of content! You can find interesting concepts at any time. See this

"Cervantes’ text and Menard’s are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say, but ambiguity is richness.)"

"Ambiguity is richness" Claude Shannon, and his information theory, will be proud of this concept. So, a lot of content in short essays is a good deal for a new language.

Borges taught himself german just to read Schopenauer. You can learn spanish just to read Borges!

Miguel

[michiguel]

Gaviota last version always runs out of time when its own king is given a check...

I have never seen that...
Can you try to reproduce it? For me, having an engine with no bugs is more important than anything else.

What GUI are you using?

I have the strong feeling that you may see that with a GUI that is not compliant with SAN (Standard algebraic notation). If Gaviota receives Bb5 rather than Bb5+ will not consider it a valid move. If this is the case, Gaviota is right but I may want to make it to accept Bb5 anyway, just to deal with possible broken GUIs.

Miguel

Well, You got it right. Arena GUI is used, Gaviota simply doesn't seem to accept moves without "+"(check) in it. Even if its GUI fault for not including "+", the engine shouldn't boycott the game over this

Thanks a lot! This may explain a message that I have seen some time ago.

I will try to accommodate this problem. But please, understand that it is difficult for engine writers to find workaround for bugs of every possible GUI.
Please report this bug to the Arena developers. The developers should read and follow the standards rather than making their own. It is very clear that under SAN, Qb6 is not a valid move. That is not my choice.

I will make Gaviota to accept checks without + anyway. It should not harm the engine.

Miguel