[computer-go] Some beginner's questions concerning go bots

[Jason House]

On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 20:23 -0700, Carter Cheng wrote:

> 3) Also thanks for the links. I have taken a look at some of the code. I am not sure I will be writing in Java or D and most likely will be implementing the system in something like C++. I am worried about Java's speed since it's interpreted (which still means a x2 slowdown even with the JIT and Hotspot compilation and selective inlining). D I am just not too familiar with I am wondering what advantages it brings over C++. I am primarily concerned about maturity issues. I am not trying to start a discussion on which language is "better", but those are my initial impressions.

I think Java's speed has come a long way and is now close to comparable
to C++.  I had gotten interested in D back when it was initially
discussed on this list.  One described it as C++ without the warts.
When I switched from a classical alpha-beta bot to monte carlo, I also
switched from C++ to D.  In theory, it should be as fast as C++ because
it's compiled to machine language, but in practice that's not true...
The compilers are not mature yet.  Additionally, it's Mac and 64 bit
support is limited.

<marketing for D language>
D has some really cool features that I've taken advantage of with my
bot:
* Greatly simplified generic coding
* Builtin function objects (called delegates)
* Design by contract
* Built in unit testing
* Foreach / no iterators
</marketing>