[computer-go] Language War!

[Peter Drake]

On Jul 28, 2006, at 11:26 PM, Rémi Coulom wrote:

> Peter Drake wrote:
>> Should we start from scratch or use parts of another open source  
>> program, such as GNU Go?
>
> Please, please, start from scratch. Or don't participate in  
> competitions.
>
> Having a good data structure and fast MakeMove function is part of  
> the difficulty and the fun of writing a Go program. You really  
> should do it yourself.

This is certainly my inclination. It is a fun data structure /  
algorithm problem.

> Also, if you are writing a Monte-Carlo program, you should be able  
> to obtain much better performance with your own code than with  
> GNU's, because GNU's was not designed for Monte Carlo.

Yes. For example, GNU maintains the number of stone and liberty  
counts of each string, and we don't need that information.

> Why not translate what you already have in Java to C++? That should  
> be rather straightforward.

That's the basic idea, although we're going to go to lengths to avoid  
dynamic allocation.

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