Re: computer-go: And what about the hardware?

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are  many languages out there and  some are tailored to specific
tasks.  I'm  certain one  could be designed   that is  tailored  to go
engine  programming  and could  even save  much  development time.  It
would be a huge  undertaking and might not  ever be as efficient as C.
Any programming language that  is turing complete will  do the job, so
what   we  are talking   about  is designing   a   language that makes
expressing our ideas easier.  It only has value if it can do this.

I've  always  been  struck by  how  much  language,  whether  human or
computer affects the way we think.  We all carry on internal dialogues
with ourselves (talking to  ourselves) and as far  as I know we all do
it in some language we are familiar with.  There are certain things we
are aware of (feelings and moods) that  we don't always "verbalize" so
we apparantly don't absolutely need a  highly structured language, but
it seems to help a lot.  I can't imagine reasoning something out in my
mind without verbalizing it internally.

Any of us  who use many   computer languages probably  realize that we
might  approach problems  differently  if we  use different languages.
The language encourages us down certain pathways.  A simple example of
this is that I tend to use associative arrays more if I am programming
in perl.  In most cases I would  not dream of going  to the trouble to
design a hashing function and associated data structures to accomplish
the   same task in C,  unless  it was clearly   and obviously the best
choice.

So I don't  really know if "it doesn't  matter much" which is what  we
all  implied on the   group.   I think  you  could certainly  design a
language  that aided  productivity,   but  there are already   elegant
languages that   exist which probably  would do  this too,  and yet we
problably won't use them for performance reasons.

Don



   Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 08:51:28 +0000
   From: Antonio <cebrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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   Hi all,

	   I subscribed to this group a few weeks ago, and the first message I 
   received was that about the best language for computer Go. It seems that
   it
   doesn't matter very much and what is important is to write well the
   program.
   Perphaps it is so because all languages run in a 'standard' machine, and
   the 
   filter for efficiency is the assembly code.

   So, this is my question,

	   - Do you think that with Go hardware specific machinery the perfomance
   of actual programs could be improved?

	   - Do you think that it could be a good idea to spend a lot of time
   working
   in a project trying to write a Go Virtual Machine (GVM for short) hoping
   some 
   day it could be implemented?

	   - Perphaps it could be fun emulate John Von Neumann and try to outline
   the 
   main components of a GVM. ¿What are the main blocks a GVM should have? 
   ¿Wich parts of a Go program can be improved using hardware specific
   components? 

   I am waiting your comments
   -- 
   Por internacia diskutado, kial ne Esperante?
   For international discussions, why not using Esperanto?
   Para discusiones internacionales, por qué no usar Esperanto?

		   ----------   Toni Cebrián