Plea for a computerchess beginners forum or FAQ

[Guenther]

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=76573
http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=75106
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(just some examples of dozens in the last few months - ofc it won't help vs. intentionally trolling)

Q: what is data in case of computerchess games? (:)
Q: what do I need to post to help verifying my 'case'?
Q: do I need to read the suggestions?
Q: what if I don't understand the suggestions?
etc.

=> time for some holidays from talkchess

[towforce]

At the end of each season, the top 3 posters from the lower league could be promoted to the top league, and the bottom 3 posters from the top league could be relegated to the lower league!

[hgm]

We could make a special captcha for TalkChess registration, which would not only keep out bots, but also people that do not know enough about computer chess.

[unserializable]

Hey Guenther!

FAQ with good practices distilled and gotchas noted sounds like a fantastic idea, if there are experienced people willing to work on it. Is the forum flexible enough for FAQ though (post editing limited)? Maybe chessprogramming.org Wiki could have a place where more detailed and more practical FAQ content goes? Some structural ideas from now rather outdated Winboard FAQ (http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=w ... :faq:index) could perhaps provide some first questions for more general answers (ah, the GPUs, CPUs, settings, UCI/CECP, ...).

=> time for some holidays from talkchess

Here's a song with some overlapping themes: Endgames Bloody Endgames!

Wish you return soon, invigorated!
Taimo

[ssamsamm]

Hey Guenther!

FAQ with good practices distilled and gotchas noted sounds like a fantastic idea, if there are experienced people willing to work on it. Is the forum flexible enough for FAQ though (post editing limited)? Maybe chessprogramming.org Wiki could have a place where more detailed and more practical FAQ content goes? Some structural ideas from now rather outdated Winboard FAQ (http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=w ... :faq:index) could perhaps provide some first questions for more general answers (ah, the GPUs, CPUs, settings, UCI/CECP, ...).

=> time for some holidays from talkchess

Here's a song with some overlapping themes: Endgames Bloody Endgames!

Wish you return soon, invigorated!
Taimo

As a newbie I just wanted t say that a good tutorial will be much appreciated
Because the existing one is a little bit difficult to understand

[mvanthoor]

Hey Guenther!

FAQ with good practices distilled and gotchas noted sounds like a fantastic idea...

The chess programming Wiki should be enough, but apart from looking through it for nostalgic purposes, I think it is often too general with regard of topic discussion, and it seems to have at least some mistakes (for example, a few days ago I found a discussion on transposition tables, where the pseudo-code on CPW was deemed to be wrong). The CPW is a great (historical) resource to get you going, but visiting it will only be a start.

One of the problems with chess programming is not only finding the information, but also finding the CORRECT information; making sure information is actually correct has been the hardest part of getting my engine going, and I assume that, the more advanced the subjects become, the sparser the information about them will be.... with, at the end, the only recourse being to try and read code of known-good engines.

[Guenther]

Hey Guenther!

FAQ with good practices distilled and gotchas noted sounds like a fantastic idea...

The chess programming Wiki should be enough, but apart from looking through it for nostalgic purposes, I think it is often too general with regard of topic discussion, and it seems to have at least some mistakes (for example, a few days ago I found a discussion on transposition tables, where the pseudo-code on CPW was deemed to be wrong). The CPW is a great (historical) resource to get you going, but visiting it will only be a start.

One of the problems with chess programming is not only finding the information, but also finding the CORRECT information; making sure information is actually correct has been the hardest part of getting my engine going, and I assume that, the more advanced the subjects become, the sparser the information about them will be.... with, at the end, the only recourse being to try and read code of known-good engines.

This is far too advanced and it seems you mixed up talkchess with a chess programmers forum?
Actually the chess programmers forum is just a small part of it.

Often beginners, who come to the talkchess (general) forum, neither know what pgn is, nor cmd.
They often don't know about their own hardware (e.g. instruction sets), or don't know what an uci option is, or that not every
'bin' file automatically is a polyglot book ;-) etc.
(I could add much worse examples than the mentioned ones)
I remember a case when I suggested to create a log or debug file for isolating a problem and the answer was sth like
'we are living in the 21st century it would be stupid, if we would need to create such files for solving problems'.

Still they have managed to play a random game on their random GUI, about which they have no clue what it is doing, nor how it should be set up
and wonder why program x always loses to program y (well they say always - sometimes they mean two games with always), when all sources say
program x should be stronger.
Later after lots of questions and tedious help it will be revealed the programs were using more hash than ram available, or one used mpv 10,
or a very strange tc, or one program played with much more threads and so on and on...

[mvanthoor]

This is far too advanced and it seems you mixed up talkchess with a chess programmers forum?
Actually the chess programmers forum is just a small part of it.

Oops... sorry. I basically come to Talkchess for the programming and engine-release part

Often beginners, who come to the talkchess (general) forum, neither know what pgn is, nor cmd.
They often don't know about their own hardware (e.g. instruction sets), or don't know what an uci option is, or that not every
'bin' file automatically is a polyglot book etc.

Not that I'm one for refusing people to participate and learn, but if you're looking for information about -using- chess software, there are (I think) much better chess forums and sites than this one.

(I could add much worse examples than the mentioned ones)
I remember a case when I suggested to create a log or debug file for isolating a problem and the answer was sth like
'we are living in the 21st century it would be stupid, if we would need to create such files for solving problems'.

As I said, I have a feeling that this is mainly a forum where programmers or very technically minded people hang out; not end-users of chess software. Many people who are passionate about sports cars may not actually know how they are built inside, apart from the spec sheets and numbers.

Still they have managed to play a random game on their random GUI, about which they have no clue what it is doing, nor how it should be set up
and wonder why program x always loses to program y (well they say always - sometimes they mean two games with always), when all sources say
program x should be stronger.
Later after lots of questions and tedious help it will be revealed the programs were using more hash than ram available, or one used mpv 10,
or a very strange tc, or one program played with much more threads and so on and on...

If you want to write an FAQ that covers everything that might be wrong with an end-user's setup, be my guest... see you in 2035 Maybe we could have an FAQ for the most common 10 problems or thereabouts, and that would be it... or you'd be writing hundreds of pages/posts.

[Dann Corbit]

http://adamsccpages.blogspot.com/p/cond ... under.html

[Gerd Isenberg]

The chess programming Wiki should be enough, but apart from looking through it for nostalgic purposes, I think it is often too general with regard of topic discussion, and it seems to have at least some mistakes (for example, a few days ago I found a discussion on transposition tables, where the pseudo-code on CPW was deemed to be wrong). The CPW is a great (historical) resource to get you going, but visiting it will only be a start.

Can you please provide a link to the wrong pseudo code in CPW? And a link to the discussion here as well.
I really hope, after more than 10 years of editing CPW, it is a little bit more than nostalgic stuff

Thanks & Regards,
Gerd