The feature of being able to rotate players is something that will interest some programmers, but the client is still superior for other reasons. You don't have to use the rotate feature.
1. It is more configurable since you point it to a configuration file. You can have multiple configurations setting around for various testing purposes. 2. Or you can have all your test bots in one configuration file and simply deactivate all but one by setting priority to zero for all of them except for the one you are interested in. 3. You can have a separate configuration file for the 19x19 server. 4. If the engine crashes, this client is more likely to detect and abort the script alerting you to a problem. 5. You can modify the configuration file during a game without reloading. Thus you can switch bots more gracefully, change priorities, add bots, etc. (Of course you should watch for race conditions.) 6. If you forget to add a sentinel file, you can set all priorities to zero and the script will abort on the next cycle. Here is the deal on the "./cgos3.tcl" way of starting a script: 1. The syntax "./script_name" specifies that the path is in the current directory. 2. But if you have "." in the path for your shell, you can run any script in the current directory without requiring the "./" syntax. Putting "." in your path is considered somewhat of a security risk so I always use the "./" syntax - you just get used to it and don't have to think twice about it. However most people put the "." in their PATH environment variable since it is more convenient. - Don Mark Boon wrote: > Don, > > Although I'm not interested in this feature at this point in time I > applaud the effort you put into this server. > > Just some information with regards to Mac clients: it turns out Macs > come with a tcl runtime out of the box. So you should point Mac users > simply to the cgos3.tcl file and they'll be fine. It would have saved > me a little bit of fuss. Oh, and the fact that it has to be started > with "./cgos3.tcl", simply "cgos3.tcl" doesn't work. But maybe that's > just showing I hardly ever use the command-line shell. > > Mark > > > On 16-jan-08, at 13:55, Don Dailey wrote: > >> We have designed a new CGOS engine client that has more features and >> should be more convenient to use. >> >> Here are the primary new features: >> >> You can run multiple engines if you choose. >> You can specify server and port. >> Works with configuration file - so you have multiple configs for >> different testing scenarios. >> >> >> I would like volunteers to test the alpha version so that we can get >> useful feedback. The feedback we are most interested in concerns >> bugs, glitches, annoyances that can be easily fixed, not ideas for >> major upgrades. If you have great ideas for future features, go to >> sourceforge and join the cgos-developers and we would welcome your >> feedback on this. >> >> It would be useful to test this on unix, windows and macs. I have >> done some testing on Unix, but want to know especially if there are >> Windows and Mac issues although I hope for good coverage on all >> platforms. >> >> The new client supports multiple engines, but does not manage >> simultaneous games with these engines, instead it manages the >> rotation of any specified number of players. So you may have several >> players taking turns playing games on CGOS. >> >> The players are selected randomly but you can choose the priority, >> for instance setting one player up to play twice as often as another >> if you choose. The priority number is a positive integer (it can be >> zero to deactivate a player) and determines how often a given player >> will play. The rotation schedule is not predictable, it is >> probabilistic so if you do set one program to play twice as often as >> another, this will happen on average, but it won't be a predictable >> cycle. >> >> The probability of a particular engine playing the next game is >> computed like this: >> >> prob = p / s >> >> where s is the sum of all the engines priority numbers and p is the >> priority of the engine in question. >> >> The client manages the connections - determining when to log on and >> off the server to connect a different program so that they can be >> rotated in a proper way. >> >> The client reads the configuration file between rounds, so you can >> even modify priorities or who plays between rounds without restarting >> the client or temporarily deactivate a player by setting his priority >> to zero. >> >> To run the client just execute it without arguments to get a usage >> message which explains everything. >> >> The alpha client version can be found here: >> >> http://cgos.boardspace.net/public/cgosGtp_alpha.zip >> >> Currently only a pure tcl version is available but we will be >> packaging these up as executables for the various platforms soon. Or >> on request we can do this right away. >> >> >> - Don >> _______________________________________________ >> 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/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
