Re: Progress - OpenGo...

[Nick Wedd <Nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Heikki Levanto <heikki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

>I do not know the Go Modem Protocol at all, but it seems that it has
>established itself as the standard to be used in computer go tournaments
>(and elsewhere?). 

< snip >

>But let me repeat the advice of caution in developing new protocols. The old
>one seems to serve, and has been implemented in many programs. Switching to
>a new one will require a considerable amount of work from go programmers
>around the world, work that could be put to more productive use in improving
>the game-play of their programs. Especially during the transition phase,
>most program would need to support two protocols, doubling he amount of work
>"wasted" on details of little relevance to the main goal, playing Go.

In my experience, the current one does not serve as well as it might.  I
know nothing about the low-level technical details, and assume that
these are satisfactory, though maybe not perfect.

However there are certainly problems at a high level.  I am told that
there are two strong programs which can use the GMP if one is black and
the other is white.  But the other way round they have a conversation:

A: "Hello"
B: "Hello.  I am B.  Who are you?"
A: ""

A considers that it is not obliged to reveal its identity to its
opponent.  Neither of them starts the game.

I have no opinion on whether a program ought to be obliged to identify
itself to its opponent.  I do believe that the protocol ought to rule
one way or the other on this.  I think that filling such high-level gaps
in the GMP is more important than changing the low-level aspects of it.

Nick
-- 
Nick Wedd    nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx