Don Dailey, 1956 -2013

[TimoK]

Rest in peace, Don! We will miss you! You gave us great joy with your chess programs (especially Komodo) and your interesting postings here.

My thoughts are with your family.

A very sad day...

[Adam Hair]

We can not get the full measure of a person via a hobbyist's message board. We all have strengths and weaknesses, not all of which would come through in this sort of interaction. However, in Don's case there were definitely two things that shone: his inquisitiveness and his generosity.

Don was not just interested in creating a strong engine. He was very interested in the science of chess engines and of chess itself. More than once he presented data that he collected from his experiments, none of which could directly benefit Komodo but could shed light on how engines play chess and on theoretical aspects of chess.

Yet, while pursuing those lines of study, Don also co-created one of the top 3 chess engines. I can not judge the worth of the individual contributions Don and Larry have made to Komodo, nor the measure of their synergy, but I am positive that Don's willingness to learn and try new things contributed immensely. I know that whenever a good testing methodology or an interesting chess engine idea was discussed here at CCC, Don would try to figure it out and adapt it to the work on Komodo. Don never stood pat on the things he already knew. He continually tried to add to his knowledge.

Don collected information, but he was never shy about sharing it either. For a man with a commercial chess engine, he was quite willing to share his ideas. While I am sure he kept some good ideas in his pocket , he contributed his share to the community of authors.

He was also generous in dispensing ideas and help to non-programmers. More than once, Don helped me to understand how to do things. For example, a few months ago I was forced (kicking and screaming ) to use Linux for my OS. Don would take the time to answer in detail questions I had when trying to figure out the Linux equivalent method to things I could do in Windows. In another example of his generosity, he actually wrote a short script for me when I casually mentioned some difficulty I was having in extracting some data from a Polyglot log. I am sure there are others who could say that Don was equally generous to them.

As Julien wrote earlier in this thread, Don was a great person to correspond with. A person whom I am very glad that I was able to get to know. I will always regret that that I did not get the chance to drive to Don's home and meet him. When he told us in September that the MDS had progressed into leukemia, I knew that I had to make my thought of visiting him into an action. Unfortunately, his physical condition deteriorated too quickly and I missed the opportunity. I really wish that I could have shook his hand and thanked him for all he has done for our community.

Goodbye Don. You will be missed.

[Kohflote]

Loss of words.... rest in peace....

Koh, Kah Huat

[Daniel Shawul]

R.I.P Don.
His passion for computer chess even in his last days was unbelievable.

[Sean Evans]

My Condolences to the Dailey family.

Please rest in peace Don.

Yours very truly,

Sean Evans

[mclane]

my condolences to his family and best friends.

don, we will miss you. i will miss you.

i first heard about don dailey in the early days of my computerchess life.


we all remember rexchess pc dos program.
http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/RexChess


it was in black and white and ran on hercules graphic cards. this was BEFORE VGA graphic cards were invented.



even at this early time, don and larry wrote a cool chess program, that had hash tables and was very nice.

later came socrates with julio kaplan.


we met at the aegon tournament.
http://www.thorstenczub.de/aegon.html
in this year chris whittington and me participated with chess system tal.
Don had a little laptop with him and had big fun letting his engine play against chess system tal and watch the different evaluations and when CSTAL sacced a piece against it. he was sitting there with this tiny laptop and hacking the keyboard like hell and saying: ough - thats interesting. it cannot work, or ?



yes. don was always open for new and exiting things. he had so much fun
doing computerchess.

i remember testing dons chess program DOCH. he rewrote it completely new from the scratch and it took very long for the engine to climb up into my testings. but in the end it was the leader of the tournament.

he then rewrote it again and renamed it komodo.

and lots of versions and versions came. he wanted to reach the top of all lists with komodo. but it was a race with his desease too. knowing about his desease and seeing how the engine developed was not easy. but don
was always in good mood. or helped not to fall down emotionally.

his enthusiasm. his energy. his friendship.
how can we forget it. there is now a gap. he is missing.

computerchess lost an important person.


i am sure don will not stop to exist somewhere.
i am sure somewhere he is still developing and rewriting algorithms and
his enthusiasm will light up the sky. always hoping.
always programming. even in the face of a severe desease.
never giving up. with a smile on his face. the smile he made
us all happy to be here on earth. he will send this energy into the universe.



thanks don for all you gave to us.
we will not forget those moments.
not forget you.

[GDC]

A sad day for all.
My condolences to Don's family

[Master Om]

No words come from my mouth. Don you are Inspiration for me.
Rest In Peace Don, Rest in Peace...


Regards
Some one u helped...

[kasinp]

My deepest condolences to Don's family and friends.

PK

[sedicla]

Condolences to Don's family and friends.
Always enjoyed his posts here. He will be missed.