Searching for a development team for Toga based on Fruit

[ChessKnight]

Olivier Deville

Your comment is highly appreciated.

Whole idea is just not only waking this thread up, We ALL expect a strong engine - an excellent abstract of Glaurung 2.2, Toga 1.3 JD and Scorpio 2.02 with excellent bitbase end-game strategy out of very strong team.

With a Earnest WISH - The idea of building-up a strong team Tord Romstad, Thomas Gaksch, Fabien Letouzey and Daniel Shawul (may be more Chess Engine Authors) will turn true in reality with great success. Even I would like to request Norman Schmidt (Cyclone 2.3) and Vadim Dem to Think-a-lot (GrapeFruit 1.0b) to join. As usual DM and JA will extend their support for exllent compilations.

STRONG GUYS TEAM-UP FOR THE BEST!

ChessKnight

[Tord Romstad]

With a Earnest WISH - The idea of building-up a strong team Tord Romstad, Thomas Gaksch, Fabien Letouzey and Daniel Shawul (may be more Chess Engine Authors) will turn true in reality with great success. Even I would like to request Norman Schmidt (Cyclone 2.3) and Vadim Dem to Think-a-lot (GrapeFruit 1.0b) to join. As usual DM and JA will extend their support for exllent compilations.

I know I could cooperate very well with Fabien (as indeed I did a lot in the past, although we never worked on the same program), but I'm afraid cooperation between me and Thomas Gaksch and the other Toga developers wouldn't work well. We simply have completely incompatible programming styles. I've had a brief look at Grapefruit and one of the numerous Toga 1.4 versions (I don't remember which one), and the cowboy style coding found there is the diametrically opposite of the strict bondage&discipline coding style I use in Glaurung 2. There is no way I could work with the style of code found in recent Togas.

This should not be interpreted as criticism of the Toga developers, by the way. I am sure they would find working on Glaurung's code just as uncomfortable (if not more) as I would find working on Toga's code. I also think the vast majority of mainstream C/C++ programmers would find themselves more at home with the Toga coding style than with the Glaurung coding style. One is not necessarily better than the other, it is just a matter of taste.

Tord

[ChessKnight]

Tord Romstad,

Thanks for reply and being frank in opinion.

I know self-pride barrier in coding Gurus ( I am not pointing to anyone, but in general). Apart from the coding style coz every programmer mght have their own style, The concept is to reveal, develop or improve on each algorithm used in chess engine step-by-step to make it more stronger n flawless towards perfection (bug-free). Every programmer has different ideas n chess engine is easiest way to implement and test it.

While individual programmer may follow their own style for coding. As Glaurung, Toga and Scorpio are open-source. I consider you guys are just great coz you keep it open-source, other programmers might be sneaking in each-others code to make their own engine stronger (I really do not know coz I am not not a computer pro or programmer, it's just the guess). In this game of sneaking in each-other, every one gonna remain at same level at par and tons of clones as a out-come.

The point is to cross the mark ELO : 3200+ or 3500+ togather while Glaurung, Toga and Scorpio can follow their own coding style to implement new stronger evaluation and game strategy algorithm with a combined-effort credit.

Tord Romstad, Thanking for replying frankly in this thread.
(I have seen you very active in this forum).

regards

[Tord Romstad]

Tord Romstad,

Thanks for reply and being frank in opinion.

I know self-pride barrier in coding Gurus ( I am not pointing to anyone, but in general).

From my side, it has nothing to do with pride, and I am about as far from a "coding guru" as you can get. I don't even know the C and C++ programming languages, and the way C and C++ programmers think and work is completely alien to me. That's part of the reason why I wouldn't be able to help improve the Toga code: I can't program in plain C++, but only in a subset of C++ written in my own, highly unidiomatic C++ style.

The point is to cross the mark ELO : 3200+ or 3500+ togather while Glaurung, Toga and Scorpio can follow their own coding style to implement new stronger evaluation and game strategy algorithm with a combined-effort credit.

Actually, for long-term progress in computer chess strength, I think it is better to have several moderately strong open source programs (like now) than to have a single super-strong open source program. It is important to let beginners see that there is more than one way to write a good program.

Tord