Engine Originality vs. Engine Strength

[xshat]

I decided to make a poll to ask you people a simple question: What do you think is more important? The originality of a chess engine, such as determining exactly how much and what parts of source codes were made originally by the author, directly copied, somewhat copied but extensively modified, and all other forms of code manipulation; or the actual strength of an engine, how often it wins against other engines in similar positions, certain game element strengths and weaknesses, etc.

I do realize the importance of these subjects and I'm not trying to divide them into black and white or start conflicts, but simply gain an understanding as to why certain people would value one of these aspects over another.

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Personally, I see any significant improvement as one step closer towards the final solving of chess, and do not care about the financial aspects of computer chess. I do value the integrity and honesty of engine authors, although I see more importance in actual playing strength, as all strong chess engine at one point or another are going to be criticized no matter how much or how little they copy from other engines. So for me, engine strength is about 70% important with originality being about 30%. The reason being much source code has to be copied, modified, tweaked, or otherwise improved upon at some point in order to make progress, but also, creating original coding ideas, or combining the ideas of other engines into something new, is quite acceptable in my opinion and many authors have received more negative criticism for this than they deserve.

Vas, Houdart, Norm, and all the others share many similar ideas in their coding. All chess engines do to various extents. My preference is simply to just respect their efforts into improving computer chess engines rather than try to prove or disprove their claims without hard evidence (complete or major source code comparisons).

[Uly]

Oh, I'm just going to go for strength (and that is, analysis strength, where move originality and engine behavior is very important, and not just elo). As Bozo has been saying in Rybka Forum, technology advances that way, and nothing is really original.

I think patents are actually slowing us down, as in, we'd live in a better place if patents didn't exist.

I would be very happy if someone went and reverse engineered Shredder learning code and produced code that could be used in Stockfish. Or, in general, if reverse engineering was so easy that people could open source engines and fix their unwanted behavior.

I think the controversial engines are a product of reverse-engineering, and what do we have? An top1 engine that is 60 elo better than the next best.

In the end, computer chess programming could be about cooperation instead of competition.

[thorstenczub]

i do prefer the situation of many different engines instead of few similar engines.

as Spock said: we need IDIC



"Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations"

Kittinger engines, Hirsch engines, Uniacke engines, Meyer-Kahlen engines,
Lang engines, Spracklen engines, ...

IMO the absolute strength of each is unimportant. i liked the DIFFERENT ways they behaved, played.

[Octopus]

..., and nothing is really original. ...

You are insulting and disrespecting those, who really have put new ideas into computer chess.

Those, who are copying and pasting, always should mention those, from which they are benefitting.

Only small minded people see a need to gild their disabilities by snitching success from others.

[Uly]

Fair enough, I apologize, I never should use the word nothing. I meant to say something like, mostly everything is improvement of old ideas, such as Shannon's "Type A" and "Type B" search strategies from 1950.

A really original engine would need to be done from the ground up, without looking at any of previously used methods of programming chess engines, nor at current engines or their outputs. Only such an approach would classify to me as "original", though there's no point in reinventing the wheel, there's nothing wrong with improvement of old ideas, or about having new ideas of how to implement better old approaches.

[Octopus]

..., without looking at any of previously used methods of programming chess engines, ...

Looking into documented methods is ok, but "watching" foreign code is problematic, if you want to gain respect
instead of a new quick clone.

If one is interested in strength only, he would nearly never see new ideas (which of course mostly do not start
being top sophisticated and efficient from the start up). Creativity in fact could mean to reinvent the wheel,
but not as a wheel - think e.g. of hovercraft vehicles. Have you ever read about monochrome chess engines?

[kingliveson]

Option 3 for obvious reasons.

[Charles]

Oh, I'm just going to go for strength (and that is, analysis strength, where move originality and engine behavior is very important, and not just elo). As Bozo has been saying in Rybka Forum, technology advances that way, and nothing is really original.

I think patents are actually slowing us down, as in, we'd live in a better place if patents didn't exist.

I would be very happy if someone went and reverse engineered Shredder learning code and produced code that could be used in Stockfish. Or, in general, if reverse engineering was so easy that people could open source engines and fix their unwanted behavior.

I think the controversial engines are a product of reverse-engineering, and what do we have? An top1 engine that is 60 elo better than the next best.

In the end, computer chess programming could be about cooperation instead of competition.

Typical marxist fantasy.

Competition is ingrained in the human soul just as much as co0peration.
Otherwise there would be no sports ...

You really think people should not be paid for hard work?

[Razor]

If you look at the definition for 'Original' you will be hard-pressed to name any engines that are 'Original'!

[Uly]

If you look at the definition for 'Original' you will be hard-pressed to name any engines that are 'Original'!

Yes, that's why I sad "nothing is original", not as an insult to original developers, but as a claim like, if you build a new floating car, AND it has a steering wheel inspired by the steering wheel of normal cars, then that part of the car is not original, and thus, the whole product isn't.

Competition is ingrained in the human soul just as much as co0peration.

No, we are taught to compete as kids.

Otherwise there would be no sports ...

Sports could be played exclusively for fun. I don't get it, you're having a lot of fun playing a sport, but if in the last second you lose, then all the fun had didn't count?

My most memorable correspondence games have been lost ones, in where I learned a lot about myself, and improved. I also have a lot of fun in my won ones, but it's not an obsession.

You really think people should not be paid for hard work?

Money isn't necessary in a society with enough abundance, suppose there is enough food for everyone. Is there enough food for everyone as it is? (no, really poor people may not eat today), but the same food could be produced without exchange of money, of course, the system does not allow for this.

Without money you'd still have people like Tord Romstad or Robert Hyatt (and well, insert all developers of freeware chess engines here) doing computer chess because they love it, not because of the money.

The "Designing an analysis friendly Stockfish?" thread was a tremendous success, and all the people involved didn't receive any money for it, they just helped for the satisfaction of doing so.

Rybka went commercial because Vas wanted to make a living out of it, and allowed him to spend all his time doing it. Without the money problem, everything would have gone the same, but Rybka 1.2f, 2.3.2a and Rybka 3 would have been free, and Rybka 4 would have been much stronger.

I'm a graphic designer and I do it because I love it, I like designing graphics as much as playing a chess game. In most of cases I don't get paid for my work. Money isn't needed as an incentive.

So, money seems like an obstacle more than anything, it was a good system back when resources were scarce, now it enforces the scarcity so rich people accumulate more money. I can easily imagine society of the future looking at us as we currently look at cavemen.