[computer-go] A thought about Bot-server communications

[Nick Wedd]

When I play Go on a Go server, I do not try to remember the board 
position.  I can always find out what it is by looking at the client 
window on my screen.

When a bot plays on a Go server, it does remember the position. This is 
something that programs are good at, so it seems reasonable to require 
them to do it.

But there can be, very rarely, circumstances where a bot would like to 
ask the server "what is the current board position?".  Here are some 
examples.
     (1)  My bot's opponent has just made a suicide move.  My bot does 
not realise that, under the ruleset we are using, suicide is permitted. 
Therefore its board-update routine fails.  It knows that its opponent 
has moved, and it knows that it does not know the current position.  It 
would like to ask the server to send the current position.
     (2)  As (1), but with a move that my bot thinks, wrongly, is 
forbidden by superko.
     (3)  My bot, or the platform on which it is running, has had a 
serious accident.  I have relaunched my bot and it wants to resume its 
game but has no knowledge of the position.

If my understanding of the GTP spec at
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gunnar/gtp/gtp2-spec-draft2/gtp2-spec.html is 
correct, it is not possible for a bot to say "please tell me the 
position".  Should it be possible?


A similar question applies to time.  When I play in a tournament, I am 
allowed to look at my clock to find out how much time I have left.  I am 
surprised to find that GTP provides no way for a bot to ask this. (Maybe 
I am misunderstanding the spec.  I see that there are commands 
'time_settings' and 'time-left' that the server can use to inform the 
bot of its remaining time, but I can find no indication of when, if 
ever, these commands will be issued.)

Nick
-- 
Nick Wedd    nick at maproom.co.uk