Hi Chrilly, 1) there are database of thousands of professional games for few dollards. There are not 9x9, but (i) making database is not making progress in the field, it is just having some temporary advantage in tournaments. (ii) Opening is much less important in Go than in Chess, it is why we are not so crazy about opening. At least at the current level of programs. (iii) 19x19 Go is the real game, and you can get as many games as you want, just clicking on three links. 2) interfaces are good enough for what we need, and tournaments as CGOS or KGS are good tools to take the current temperature of field. 3) seriousness can't be measured as the short term money you can make directly selling your work. I understand that you think that researchers are paid just to play writing useless papers for themself. But there are not more stupid than others, and maybe they think they are doing something useful, even if it can't be measured by the direct sell of what they produce. 4) I guess people that sell commercial programs are making money.
All that said, I agree that computer go is certainly much less mature than computer chess. Sylvain
I have read dozens of times that computer-Go is the next big challenge. But in fact it is a completly amateuristic field where even the most basic things are missing. As a chess programmer I did not even think about, that it is a problem to get a good game collection. There are no proper interfaces, no serious tournaments, a wired data standard... AND there is no money involved: For professional programming I get 60Euro/h (1Euro=1.35$). 2.000h x 60 = 120.000 Euro. This equation is of course completly wrong. One can not make in 2000h a very strong Go programm and one can not earn 120.000 Euro with it. A more realistic equation is; 20.000 Euro/5000h = 4Euro/h. The minimum wage (by law) is in Austria 6Euro/h. Obviously Go programming is even more unqualified than washing dishes in a restaurant. If it would be really a big challenge, there would be some money. In chess nowadays there is also no money. But once it was a good business and there was some considerable money for Deep Blue and on a smaller scale also for Hydra, there was Don's project at MIT, one got a big Cray for Cray-Blitz, Ken Thompson build a chess engine.... Its like some hobbyst engineers and hobby-pilots would try to fly to the moon. Its probably only good for to write some academic papers. In this case its even an advantage that everything is so amateuristic. The general level is low and one can be the one-eyed king under blind ones. Its clear to me that things are as they are in the West. Go is played only by a small freak community. But if it is so important in China/Korea/Japan why is'nt there something like Fritz and ChessBase? Or does it exist and we are living in a completly other Go-world? Chrilly P.S.: I do not want to offend anyone in this list. Everybody here does his best. I am just feed up with the things as they are. _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
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