Re: computer-go:life and death

[David Fotland <fotland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:40 PM 5/29/2001 +0100, you wrote:

> > For myself, having the rules encoded as patterns/rules or in C source code
> > is just syntax :)
> > I see either approach as doing the same kind of "Analysis".
>
> So can you write a program that processes your strategy in C code form?
> :) On the meta level it breaks down..

Of course you are right.  Expressing it as patterns/rules makes it easy to 
change the
underlying engine, or to experiment with different reasoning 
algorithms.  But for a specific domain,
with a specific reasoning method, the C code will give the same result, but 
much faster :)

If you want results in a full playing program, speed is important.  And the 
hard-coded life/death
reading algorithms get better results than the rule based systems.  One 
problem with rule-based sytems
is that they are brittle.  Their assertions are either true or false.  I've 
found that to play well, the system
has to use confidence estimates, since very few of the static evaluations 
are completely certain.


> Christian
David Fotland