Re: computer-go: What language to experiment in?

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a suggestion  for you.  I program in  many languages myself and
probably most  languages are good enough  if you are  comfortable with
them, but recently I have been playing with a language called "ruby."

Ruby is an amazing language and is kind of like a super python.  It is
more object oriented than python, but more like perl in it's syntax.

But Ruby is an interpreted  language like python (although faster), so
it won't have the speed you will need to do those fast searches needed
to determine if a string can be saved.  Fortunately, like python, ruby
can be extended with C language code.  It  is claimed by users of both
languages that it is more natural and easier to do this with Ruby than
with Python, but I can't verify this since I  haven't tried building C
modules yet.

I have my own GO and CHESS program written in C,  and I will sooner or
later be bulding Ruby modules for them.  I think  it will be a big win
for me  to do this, because  I find myself  doing a lot of experiments
that require a  significant amount  of  one-time setup code, which  is
really  quite  limiting.   Since I have  a   full  time job  and other
responsibilities, it can take  me a week or  two (an hour here  and an
hour there) to experiment with something even relatively simple.  With
Ruby this would change drastically.

This advice of course can be applied to Python too.  Python is a great
language for this same type of  thing and would work  well too.  But I
think it would be well worth your time to at least  check out the Ruby
web page and perhaps experiment a little with the language.

Anyway, that's my pitch for using a  prototype language.  I am a heavy
user of perl at work, so I am not talking out the side  of my mouth on
this!  I also know Python.


Don






   Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 06:45:04 -0800 (PST)
   From: Ben Shoemaker <planetb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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   Hello All,

   I'm interested in writing my own Go Program.
   I've been lurking on this list for a while, but I'm ready to start tossing
   together some code and I have a question.

   What language would you recommend for determining what "objects" are necessary
   and/or useful?  (obviously there is a board and some stones, but there are many
   levels of abstraction that can be placed on top of that.)

   I'm most familiar with C++, but something less typed like Lisp or Python might
   be easier to modify on the fly.

   I appreciate any advice or info you can offer.

   Thanks,
   Ben Shoemaker.

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