[computer-go] Language War!

[Peter Drake]

I know where this thread is going, so I thought I'd get it out of the  
way and put it in the Subject: line.

Here's the situation. Orego is now a relatively strong program,  
rapidly climbing the 9x9 ladder. Though knowledge-free, it can  
sometimes beat GNU Go. Our current algorithm uses a Monte Carlo  
approach similar to Coulom's "Crazy Stone".

While we have a bunch of improvements to consider, the algorithm is  
so computationally intensive that the inefficiencies of Java are  
hurting us in both time and space. We're considering switching to C+ 
+. None of us has extensive C++ experience, although we've all seen  
some C and one of us has done a lot of Objective C. (I've ordered a  
copy of Weiss' "C++ for Java Programmers".)

Should we start from scratch or use parts of another open source  
program, such as GNU Go?

Peter Drake
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Lewis & Clark College
http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/