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Subject: Re: definition of clones: Danchess an Crafty

Author: Chessfun

Date: 12:29:27 02/16/04

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On February 16, 2004 at 15:18:46, Bob Durrett wrote:

>On February 16, 2004 at 13:58:27, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>Somehow I have figured out how to "learn" far better than that, myself.  I can
>>_listen_ to someone and learn without seeing a single line of anything I can
>>copy.  Somehow we are not communicating about the difference between "ideas" and
>>"source code".  I don't know how to make it any clearer than I already have.
>>You can read Slate's chapter in Chess Skill in Man and Machine, or my chapter in
>>Computers, Chess and Cognition, and then go off and write a chess program
>>without ever seeing one line of code.  Or you can look at the current Crafty
>>source which is way more up-to-date than any paper I might have written in the
>>past, and learn the same things.  _without_ copying any of the code.  IE my
>>comments in search.c explain Internal Iterative Deepening.  That's an idea.  My
>>code gives an implementation.  That's code.  They are not the same thing.
>
>To really learn something it is not enough to read or listen to a general
>lecture about it.  Instead, it is generally necessary to examine and carefully
>study examples.  In the world of computer programming, that means examining and
>studying code.  [Another way is to solve problems carefully selected by a
>tutor.]  I never learned engineering skills by listening to or reading a
>lecture.  It was the homework which taught me my skills.  Without study of
>concrete examples, it is all a waste of time.
>
>If I wanted to "take the plunge" and try to write my own chess program, I would
>try to find open-source code which I could study and play with.  This does not
>mean copying it into my new program and then marketing it.
>
>Bob D.


TSCP seems like it suits that idea. I do actually wonder why so many pick Crafty
as the program to copy. I also wonder how many of the many chess engines that
have come about the past few years Dr. Hyatt would consider clones.

I also wonder how many Chess programmers there actually are in Ethiopia. From
reading this thread I assume Dann C looked at the source code and convinced Dan
to send a copy to Dr. Hyatt. Wonder if Dann C or Dr. Hyatt checked whether the
IP originated from Ethiopia, I know I would have ;-)

Sarah.



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