I've been around here a while. I'm not a MIT student or a PH.D and to behonest writing a chess program has been hard.
I finally had a move generator, an evaluator to suite my concepts and was truly nearing completiion of something that played legal chess. Still lacked xboard but that was my next big hurdle.
Alas about a month ago, my dev machine (small Atom based machine) went belly up and my /home was corrupt. Needless to say my backups were't complete.
I tried to chock it up as a learning experience, I learned a lot and progressed A LOT the past 6 months. Figured the learning was the most important part. A Lot of the code was in my head of sorts, and lessons learned, and ideas where I would like to change things. Even planned to redo from scratch what I already written.
But after a month. I'm no the verge of throwing the towel.
Stuff is in my head, and code is semi fresh. But damn, so much in that time was written
In times like this what keeps you going? I will never beat my mentor of Crafty, or Rybka, or anything.
But as I am at the cusp of rewriting nearly from scratch an complete engine.
I'm just depressed. I neeed something to get me over this hump.
What do/did you do? If facing similiar problems.
-Josh
In peril what keeps you going
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
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- Location: Morgantown, WV, USA
Re: In peril what keeps you going
Figure in the test of time, Olympus will become another "just legal" but valid chess engine for the rankings.. nothing special but it was mine.
Just so darn down to want to go on now. Will still keep my webserver up and keep in the scene, just not sure how much is really left of me to push on after such a blow.
-Josh
Just so darn down to want to go on now. Will still keep my webserver up and keep in the scene, just not sure how much is really left of me to push on after such a blow.
-Josh
Last edited by jshriver on Sat May 08, 2010 9:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
Every time you rewrite something, the next generation is always much better. You learn from the mistakes you made in the previous iterations.jshriver wrote:I've been around here a while. I'm not a MIT student or a PH.D and to behonest writing a chess program has been hard.
I finally had a move generator, an evaluator to suite my concepts and was truly nearing completiion of something that played legal chess. Still lacked xboard but that was my next big hurdle.
Alas about a month ago, my dev machine (small Atom based machine) went belly up and my /home was corrupt. Needless to say my backups were't complete.
I tried to chock it up as a learning experience, I learned a lot and progressed A LOT the past 6 months. Figured the learning was the most important part. A Lot of the code was in my head of sorts, and lessons learned, and ideas where I would like to change things. Even planned to redo from scratch what I already written.
But after a month. I'm no the verge of throwing the towel.
Stuff is in my head, and code is semi fresh. But damn, so much in that time was written
In times like this what keeps you going? I will never beat my mentor of Crafty, or Rybka, or anything.
But as I am at the cusp of rewriting nearly from scratch an complete engine.
I'm just depressed. I neeed something to get me over this hump.
What do/did you do? If facing similiar problems.
-Josh
It is not unusual for a programmer to discard the entirety of a previous chess program and write a new one completely from scratch.
One thing to be said for open source programs is that the loss of source code is somewhat less likely.
On the other hand, I do commiserate, having lost clumps of code a time or two in my lifetime. It never, never, never seems joyful at the time.
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
Among all of the people who could reply I'm glad it was you... you, Mr. Ballicora, or Dr. Hyatt.
To be honest I feel pretty crappy now. why didn't I rsync it just the night before
Guess it's my crap skill as a programmer... or my C talents.. dont knoiw just feel like I suck.
But damnit it's been over 10 years. This is my goal to accomplish, even if sucky lol.
-Josh
To be honest I feel pretty crappy now. why didn't I rsync it just the night before
Guess it's my crap skill as a programmer... or my C talents.. dont knoiw just feel like I suck.
But damnit it's been over 10 years. This is my goal to accomplish, even if sucky lol.
-Josh
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
Hi Joshua,jshriver wrote:I've been around here a while. I'm not a MIT student or a PH.D and to behonest writing a chess program has been hard.
I am not MIT student either, and yes, writing a chess program is hard (but doable). I have a PhD but in Chemistry, so it does not count
I understand you well. Few months ago I broke a portable HD and I lost important documents and the sources of a program I wrote (for chemistry). I am still crying.
First, one of my favorite quotes:
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. ", Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
I strongly suggests that you use git
http://git-scm.com/
It changed my life as a programmer. For the gaviota tablebases I used git hub now (Aaron Becker suggestion) and I realize that it is the only way to protect my sources. When I finish I type "git push" and that's it. Backed up! For some of my non-open sources projects (some in chemistry) I am considering paying to save them in git hub. All local backups are doomed to failure, because you almost always lose something, a day, a week etc.
Do not give up. They day you play your first game against your own engine you will have a sensation that it is very difficult to compare with anything else.
To alleviate the pain, do not start again with the generator you wrote. Do something else, so you feel better. Start with the xboard interface and fill it with empty functions. Write a fen parser (need it for setboard), a move parser, etc. At that time, your enthusiasm will come back and maybe this approach will make you to have a better design!
Miguel
I finally had a move generator, an evaluator to suite my concepts and was truly nearing completiion of something that played legal chess. Still lacked xboard but that was my next big hurdle.
Alas about a month ago, my dev machine (small Atom based machine) went belly up and my /home was corrupt. Needless to say my backups were't complete.
I tried to chock it up as a learning experience, I learned a lot and progressed A LOT the past 6 months. Figured the learning was the most important part. A Lot of the code was in my head of sorts, and lessons learned, and ideas where I would like to change things. Even planned to redo from scratch what I already written.
But after a month. I'm no the verge of throwing the towel.
Stuff is in my head, and code is semi fresh. But damn, so much in that time was written
In times like this what keeps you going? I will never beat my mentor of Crafty, or Rybka, or anything.
But as I am at the cusp of rewriting nearly from scratch an complete engine.
I'm just depressed. I neeed something to get me over this hump.
What do/did you do? If facing similiar problems.
-Josh
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
Rewriting a engine from scratch is painful but the results will be worthy.
I've redone my own engine twice, and am doing it again (new data structures, new search, new eval, new xboard support).
Don't give up. Your new engine will be much better than the old one.
And, after all, the fun is in the creation process.
I've redone my own engine twice, and am doing it again (new data structures, new search, new eval, new xboard support).
Don't give up. Your new engine will be much better than the old one.
And, after all, the fun is in the creation process.
Download KMT Chess 1.2.1
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmtchess/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmtchess/
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
i'm sure Olympus will be back, better than ever!
You may feel like giving up now, but sooner or later, you'll be back! seriously, just like cigarettes, you can never truly give up chess programming!
You may feel like giving up now, but sooner or later, you'll be back! seriously, just like cigarettes, you can never truly give up chess programming!
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
This is actually a good sign--it means you have good taste, but your skills haven't caught up yet. The people who really get stuck are the ones who wrote horrible code without seeing anything wrong with it. Here's a video from an expert in another field that explains what I'm talking about and that makes me feel better when I can't meet my own standards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xEjshriver wrote:Guess it's my crap skill as a programmer... or my C talents.. dont knoiw just feel like I suck.
Good luck!
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
Like everyone said, the second time, it becomes easier. And so on and so on. My own engine has gone over 30 restarts and only once did I managed to get something more than a material only evaluation function. I've also gone from C to C++, have started using git and have still high hopes that one day it will see the light of day. So chin up, create your new engine directory and start afresh.
As for your backup problems, the way to go is to use a source code hosting facility. There are many free ones around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... facilities
I use sourceforge and github; I'm sure you can find one which meets your need. After a round of coding, just git push and your backup is complete.
Good luck!
As for your backup problems, the way to go is to use a source code hosting facility. There are many free ones around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... facilities
I use sourceforge and github; I'm sure you can find one which meets your need. After a round of coding, just git push and your backup is complete.
Good luck!
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Re: In peril what keeps you going
Hi Josh.
I could give you a very long story about getting burn out.
To much banging your head on the wall
Take some time off and relax for awhile.
In a few weeks you will come back fresh
with some new ideas.
Best,
Gerold.
I could give you a very long story about getting burn out.
To much banging your head on the wall
Take some time off and relax for awhile.
In a few weeks you will come back fresh
with some new ideas.
Best,
Gerold.