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Subject: Re: Please, stop it. ?

Author: Lars Bremer

Date: 07:05:55 08/03/05

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On August 03, 2005 at 08:18:58, Reinhard Scharnagl wrote:

>On August 03, 2005 at 07:45:50, Lars Bremer wrote:
>
>Hi Lars,
>
>> It does not matter whether the format is called X-FEN or Shredder-FEN, the real
>> problem is that is called "FEN" and "PGN".
>
>that is why I have tried to find a compromise with SMK, because compatibility
>is much mor importat than names or keeping own proposals unchanged.
>
>> What happens when the user clicks on
>>a PGN file? Right, a pgn viewer starts and shows the game list. I use Chessbase
>>9 for that purpose. Since I don't open checkers games or reversi games with
>>Chessbase I have not the wish to open FRC games with it. If the game file has a
>>*.pgn extension, I (and the operating system) cannot decide what is insinde,
>>chess games oder frc games. It would be more useful to call it *.pgn and
>>*.pgn960, for instance. So I can open chess games with a chess program and frc
>>games with a frc program without looking inside the file before. *That* would be
>>a real compatible solution in my eyes because there wouldn't be a re-definiton
>>of an existing format. It is ridiculous to fill beer in wine bottles.
>
>You describe a very hypothetic "problem".

It is the only non hypothetic part in a very hypothetic discussion imho.

> It does not make any sense to design
>a FEN for engines and GUIs not supporting Chess960.

It makes sense to have a compatible PGN which not irritates old GUIs. The stuff
inside can be Y-FEN, Y-FEN, A to Z FEN or whatever, but don't call it pgn if
there is no chess inside but frc.

> The user of old programs
>cannot use a Chess960 PGN anyway. And traditional chess games easily could be
>selected by chosing only PGN entries without any FEN Tag included at all.

For instance, a friend sends me a game in pgn. He writes "look at that
astonishing game, I blundered a queen but was able to hold the draw
nevertheless". I open the pgn, Chessbase 9 starts. I try to follow the game, but
I can't because it is a FRC game. I close Chessbase, start Smirf or Shredder or
Arena, load the game and now, after a lot of effort, I can finally replay the
moves. This is not what I would call user friendly. If we would have different
extensions the right program would start automaticly. Hypethetic or not?

>And
>it also would be a good idea to look, which PGN files will be downloaded.

Of course, but one month later I find a pgn file in a forgotten folder and
forgot also about the format. It is simply not necessary with a different
extension.

> It is
>quite normal, that files of a more powerfull successor program cannot be used
>by its ancestors. Just have a look on several MS Word file formats.

So you think MS Word is a good example and we should follow Microsofts strategie
of incompatibility?

ciao
Lars



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