I think I agree with Ed, but I also see and appreciate the arguments you give as well. I also like to watch CGOS games to evaluate my bot, but 1 hour per game is somewhat past my attention span (for real go games too).
In all likelihood, I'll probably stick to 9x9 for most of my stuff (largest reason, games finish faster), and only switch to 19x19 when I'm good enough at the basics to be near the top of 9x9. If too many of us do that, 19x19 may suffer a similar fate to what it did in the past (that might not be true with Many Faces and others joining this time around). I think the idea of multiplexing in many 9x9 games between a few 19x19 games is a good feature that I'd likely take advantage of... Probably not enough to get my bot out of the yellow, but enough to get a flavor of how it performs on 19x19. On Sun, 2007-10-28 at 12:03 -0400, Don Dailey wrote: > Hi Edward, > > I can give you the goals of CGOS since I wrote CGOS for my own reasons. > > As a chess programmer I noticed that serious events and competitions > were a huge impetus to making programming improvements. A lot of > programmers told me the same thing, that despite the testing they did > on the side, actual competitions seemed to reveal problems and bugs. > > So what I thought would be useful to the computer go community would be > a forum for testing that could also stimulate competition and would have > some meaning. In other words, I didn't make CGOS only as a way to > "test" your program or even just to get a rating, but as a way to > stimulate competition. That's a big key to most improvements in most > fields, and nothing brings this out more than real competition with > real numbers. I wanted it to mean something if your program makes it > to the top 10 on CGOS, etc. > > You will probably notice that CGOS results have been used in papers > written about computer GO, to verify that the techniques used in the > paper have some validity. What I've always hated is unverifiable > papers. There is a summary section near the end where the techniques > being presented are "experimentally verified" with their own self-tests > - which nobody else can usually verify because the program is not open > to the public. CGOS is superb for that too - it's a public forum to > expose your creations - good, bad or ugly, to the world. > > In computer chess, and I assume also in computer go, there is more > status associated with games which are played at time controls us humans > think are "serious." Also, there is much more status associated with > games that are "public" as opposed to private testing. Status is > good in this context for computer go. It's why I made the choices I > did and why I think longer time controls are better for the computer go > community as a whole. > > I agree that there are reasonable arguments for faster time controls, I > don't discount those reasons, but when all things are considered > together, I think the reasons for having longer time controls make more > sense. I believe even 30 minutes is fast, but it's a good compromise > in my opinion. > > - Don > > > > > > > Hi, maybe so, but can you name some programs which cannot cope > > with 10 minutes thinking time for 19x19? > > Note that my own program is a MC program which will play weaker > > in relation to for instance gnugo which the shorter thinking time, but > > I find that not important because as a programmer I want to see > > the relative progress over time. > > > > > > Maybe I am confused about the goals of CGOS? I thought that > > programmers could use it to get a good impression of improvements > > over time. > > And I also like to see the progress of other programs over time. > > I think this is also interesting to see for others. > > > > Edward. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Publiceer JOUW leven online met Windows Live Spaces: weblog, foto, > > video en muziek! Het is gratis! Het is gratis! > > <http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnksac0030000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://www.imagine-msn.com/spaces> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > computer-go mailing list > > computer-go@computer-go.org > > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
