[computer-go] The "standard techniques" of go playing programs

[<mpe501@xxxxxxxxx>]

According to the computer go ladder the four best programs (on 19x19) are: Go4++, GoAhead, ManyFaces and GnuGo.

Would it be accurate to describe these programs as something akin to expert systems, that is, the go knowledge of individual people encoded in program form? Is it correct that they don't use any fancy machine learning techniques but are hand-tuned  by humans(the pattterns etc.) for optimal performance? Each new pattern has to added by a human?

I seem to remember reading something about that at least manyfaces and gnugo work like that....

I am doing an investigation were I try to answer the question "Given incremental improvement on the current standard techniques in go programming, and incremental improvment in computer performance, is it likely that we will ever get a professional level program?".  My working hypothesis is no... I will attempt to test it by taking old versions of e.g. gnugo and see how large the difference in strength is between different vesions when run on the same hardware and also how much better it gets with increased computing power. I will then try to estimate how much better programs are likely to become in the next 5, 10, 20, 50 years.
However, first I need to know if my assumption that there is such a thing as a set of "standard techniques" in go programming is correct and that they are something similar to what I described above. Are they?

Regards,
David

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