Comment: Is this the computer go mailing list?

[Matt Gokey <mgokey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I just finished reading 22 messages about int vs struct, byte ordering,
data representation, and API philosophy, etc....

IMHO, we're getting WAY off the mark!

As Stuart Cracraft has been asking, if anyone wants to donate their go
engine to GNU Go or otherwise share the source to their go engine that's
fine and would be greatly appreciated by the go programming community I
think.   Likewise, if we share code or pseudo code for particularly
interesting or clever algorithms/techniques that would probably be
appreciated too.

But we are not going to agree on objects, or internal interfaces for a
go engine - look at the trivial matters no-one can agree on already!  Go
playing software is at way too infantile a stage to jump to that!  The
go engine is not a good choice for standardization.  There are too many
variations and ideas being experimented with to solidify anything
non-trivial.  Furthermore, the engine must normally be optimized for
performance and might not be a good match with generic C++ classes which
will tend to produce comparatively slower code.

Lets finish discussing Jeff Greenberg's proposal for a flexible and
portable Go environment "OpenGo" with a GUI, SGF support, GMP support,
referee, and player proxies.  This code is not performance critical and
if the interfaces to these main components are reasonable -  the details
are irrelevant (just overload or wrap with a conversion fn.).   Its a
lot of work to get this entire framework for a Go program going!  I for
one would love to have the framework complete and be able to concentrate
on Go engine ideas and experimentation in a convenient and user-friendly
environment.   It would be a HUGE enabler to many of us I believe,
especially since any 2 player proxies can play against each other.   I
think it would go a long way in helping improve the level of computer go
play and program inter operability.

I'd like to see Jeff's "OpenGo" full spec and interfaces published
publicly here for comments by computer go programmers to allow Jeff time
to incorporate any agreed changes before he first releases the "OpenGo"
code.  Jeff, is this something you would be willing to do?  Are you
still intending to go public? (no pun intended)

What does everyone think about these issues?

Matt