Crafty UCI version

[Matthias Gemuh]

... ChessBase has no interest at all in people using their GUI with engines other than their own. It seems it has been a hard fight even making them support UCI, to which they gave in only very reluctantly. Their attitude is: "if you want to use an engine, buy Fritz!"...
...

Wow ! well said.

[bob]

I don't have any animosities against adapters. Where do you take that from?

Well, in your previous post you wrote: "I certainly won't use adapters"...

The industry standard may have as many defects as you can find, people in the real world won't care and won't start using winboard.

No, and I was not asking them to. But at least they should aim their grievances against the makers of the defective GUIs, rather than against engine programmers.

I have used all the available adapters, geek solutions, config files or whatever in the past; I am even a bad programmer and experienced user of all kinds of software, so I could figure out and make viable whatever I want.
But like I said, my geeky days are over. I knew all the little parameters of crafty by heart; then they were changed, and I did not bother to learn the new set. I am also aware of your successful efforts to improve on winboard, thx for it. But most chessplayers are not as knowledgable and it's up to the programmers to make the decision: Do they want their product to be used or ignored? Well, of course I know the answer, but I wanted to make the point, nevertheless.

The problem is that the discussion about technical issues here is polluted by a discussion of who should do what. These are really separate issues. You make the assumption here that using an adapter unavoidably means you have to install and configure it yourself.

But that is a fallacy. To run my engine Joker under the ChessBase GUI it would be necessary to invoke WB2UCI, with some .eng (?) settings file. Geeky users would be able to figure out how to do this themselves. But if I wanted to make life easy for the digibetic masses, I could bundle (a renamed) WB2UCI with the required .eng file and the .exe of the (WB) engine. They would use the disguised WB2UCI as if it was a UCI version of Joker, and would not have the technical expertise to ever figure out that they are really running a WB engine through an adapter.

And if I, as engine author, are not interested to bundle Joker that way, someone else could do it, and host the bundled Joker_UCI package on his website. This would be a hell of a lot easier for them than to convert Joker to UCI (even if they could get the source code for it).

So it seems that the dominant part of the reasoning here is: "If I run WB engine XXX through WB2UCI, this is cumbersome, but still not so difficult that I couldn't conceivable do it myself if I tried hard. So it is better to require XXX is converted to a UCI engine, because that is such a big and complex job that everyone understands I cannot do it myself, so all the work has to be done by someone else." Well, that the user does not want to do any extra work just because his GUI supplier also did not want to do it (i.e. bundle the required adapters with the GUI, as I do for WinBoard), and wants to dump the extra work on a random volunteer might be natural. But that still doesn't justify making the job far more elaborate than needed.

In WinBoard we have of course had the opposite situation, where it required cumbersome and geeky editing of ini files to run UCI engines in it. This was remedied by improving both the Polyglot adapter, and to a lesser extent WinBoard, so that UCI engines now run just as easily as WB engines in WinBoard, without the user ever knowing he was running through an adapter. So it is not exactly science fiction. Transparent usage of WB engines in UCI-only GUIs should be just as easy. And to achieve it would be easier than converting a single WB engine to UCI.

Of course if the engine doesn't really do what you want even in a WB-capable GUI, (like not supporting multi-PV in analysis mode), that is an entirely different issue still. It would require extensive modification of the core of the engine. You might as well require that it was 300 Elo stronger. Wouldn't it be great if someone would make a version of Crafty for us that was 3400 Elo? But I think it is highly unrealistic to expect that anyone but the author would be able and willing to fix such things.

I have not looked in a while, but once upon a time, UCI apparently didn't think the engine was capable of remembering anything, and stuffed the entire game's move list down the program's craw each time it wanted to tell the program to find a best move. That was gross. ChessBase did that for several years with their interface. A real chessbase engine could ponder and everything else. But a poor winboard engine could ponder all it wanted, but then chessbase would say "we are starting a new game, here are the first N moves, tell me what you want to play" which is gross and totally wiped out pondering unless someone (as I did) hacked together a fix that would not really start over.

If UCI still does that, it is one perfect example of why not to use it.

[hgm]

Yes, UCI still does that. I wouldn't bother with it if I were you.

But it would be nice if you could make Crafty deliver multi-PV in XBoard analyze mode, through an engine-defined option MultiPV...

[syzygy]

His question is pretty clear.

It's not really a question though: "can someone make a UCI port of Crafty?"- Answer: yes, someone can do it. It's actually a request: I'd like one, would someone be able/willing to make one?

Wow, this is so productive.

I don't see why he needs to justify it.

Of course he doesn't, and if you think I ever said anything to the contrary you need to read more carefully. I asked for clarification.

You did not "ask" for clarification. You repeatedly insisted that he tell you "the point". The way you presented your "question" was pretty rude in my eyes.

In addition you took objection to "I realise Crafty's author, Bob Hyatt, doesn't like UCI as it cedes too much control to the GUI" which was merely a statement of fact from the point of view of the OP. Then when he said he'd leave the "why" to Bob, you were again rude.

And I won't start on why you could possibly have felt the need to use this thread as an opportunity to share a story about Stockfish, Makruk, Senpai, whatever.

He simply does not like the hassle of having to configure adapters.

That is not something you can infer from the original post, which is what prompted me to ask why he wanted it.

Certainly something that I can infer from the original post. It's quite clearly "the point" of having an UCI version. What else could it be.

presumably he wants it to solve some particular problem that might be solvable in another way, but without knowing what that problem is it's impossible to say.

He told you the solution (UCI port of Crafty), so no need to wonder what the problem might be.

Come on, you're smarter than that.

Really. He simply asked if someone could make an UCI version. Nothing difficult about it.

"UCI works better" is not an answer to the question, because it's not factually true. It may be subjectively true (or false!) but then it is useful to know why that is the case. Note that this isn't about anyone being "right" or "wrong", just about understanding a point of view.

Do you actually think the OP came here for a chess engine interface protocol war? He did not.

[hgm]

And what did you come here for, btw? I have seen you do little else than attacking people on behalf of someone who is perfectly able to speak for himself. And offering nothing constructive. Have you already made a Crafty UCI port, with compliant implementation of options and multi-PV for the OP, if you consider it so important that what he obviously requested should be done without questioning?

[syzygy]

He's not misguided. He only was confronted with people preferring to show off their "intelligence" rather than trying to be helpful.

Count me out on two counts. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable in this arena to show off anything and I did offer a suggestion.

My post was not aimed at you at all, sorry for giving that impression. You were certainly trying to be helpful. I just got annoyed with the unnecessary and unwarranted attacks on the OP even to the point of calling him "misguided".

A reasonable reader would have understood that from the opening post.

Perhaps there is a deficit of reasonable persons because it is clear that there are a number of unclear areas from what was posted.

True, so some good questions were asked and some unclear areas were cleared up. But I don't really believe you had no idea what the OP asked for.

I would even accept that I am unreasonable but not Evert or H.G.

Let's agree to disagree on this

H.G. turned it into a definitional question with anyone not following his definitions being labelled as "misguided".

As you implied below, the fact that persons have a different approach from yourself or understanding does not, in and of itself, make them unreasonable, unhelpful or braggarts.

See my previous sentence.

[syzygy]

And what did you come here for, btw?

To haunt you. Booh.

[hgm]

Yes, that is quite obvious to anyone. And it is called 'trolling'.

If this thread is turning into a 'protocol war', you are the sole person to blame for this. The rest of us is just busy to find a feasible method that would make the OP happy.

Go away, troll!

[Evert]

I don't see why he needs to justify it.

Of course he doesn't, and if you think I ever said anything to the contrary you need to read more carefully. I asked for clarification.

You did not "ask" for clarification. You repeatedly insisted that he tell you "the point". The way you presented your "question" was pretty rude in my eyes.

The one who is really rude here is you. Since I don't believe you're as dense as you come across here, I also have to assume you're being deliberately obtuse.

I "repeatedly insist he tell me the point?" Really?
I asked in my first post: "what's the point of a UCI port of Crafty?" As in, what problem does having one solve? That's once.
A straight answer would have been nice, but I guess that would have been too easy.

In addition you took objection to "I realise Crafty's author, Bob Hyatt, doesn't like UCI as it cedes too much control to the GUI" which was merely a statement of fact from the point of view of the OP.

I take no objection to such a statement. I don't care whether Bob Hyatt likes UCI or not or why. What I said was that I don't understand "as it cedes too much control to the GUI." I still don't, really.

Then when he said he'd leave the "why" to Bob, you were again rude.

Since I didn't ask him why Bob thinks anything, but asked what he meant by "as it cedes too much control to the GUI", the response "Bob can speak for, and defend, himself" is really off the mark, and in itself rude. Which did annoy me.
That's since been cleared up as a miscommunication.

And I won't start on why you could possibly have felt the need to use this thread as an opportunity to share a story about Stockfish, Makruk, Senpai, whatever.

I would think this was quite clear, since I explained the reason. I'll repeat it for your convenience:

One reason I have seen people ask for a UCI port of an engine is that they assume that converting an engine to UCI would somehow make it stronger (the strongest engines are UCI engines, clearly there is a correlation there, and as we all know correlation equals causation). Of course there exist multi-protocol engines, but those are also generally not top engines, and you can't tell from a rating list if there is any strength difference between the two protocols (of course there shouldn't be).
It so happens that I did the reverse experiment: convert a UCI engine to CECP, with the predictable result that it remains equally strong. Given that I already suggested that such a conversion is essentially pointless, it seemed reasonable to say why I did that.

As it happens, the OP was not under this particular delusion, so that's where that piece of the conversation ended, until you saw the need to drag it up again. As an example, it still highlights a few pertinent points:

A "port" of an engine to another protocol is certainly doable, and depending on the engine, can be easy to do. It makes no difference in playing strength, it does not magically add new features and it does not fix bugs (but it may of course introduce new ones).
In short, as I just said, it is basically pointless unless you have a specific reason in mind. In my case, it was a necessary first step in another experiment.

He simply does not like the hassle of having to configure adapters.

That is not something you can infer from the original post, which is what prompted me to ask why he wanted it.

Certainly something that I can infer from the original post. It's quite clearly "the point" of having an UCI version. What else could it be.

You tell me. I don't know, that's why I asked.
But since the word "adapter" never featured in the original post, so unless you're psychic or smart enough to know what someone means to write regardless of what they actually write, your inference is no more than a guess.
Either way, it doesn't matter: if you get the point and I don't, I still get to ask what it is. To basically say "I understand what is meant, so you shouldn't have to ask" really is exceedingly arrogant and presumptuous.

Perhaps this point bears repeating: when I ask a question, I do so because I'm curious about the answer. I don't do it to wind other people up, or to put people down. You may want to stop and consider why someone asks a question, rather than going by your own preconceived opinion.

He told you the solution (UCI port of Crafty), so no need to wonder what the problem might be.

Come on, you're smarter than that.

Really. He simply asked if someone could make an UCI version. Nothing difficult about it.

Did you just miss the point again?
If I were to say "get rid of Windows and just use Linux", what "problem" did I just solve? Doesn't matter, right, since I already told you the solution?
Of course not. There can be many good reasons for doing that, and there can be many dumb reasons for doing that, and if I were asking someone for help with a particular solution I have in mind, I would hope that they would look at the problem and mention it if the solution I came up with doesn't seem like a good one. Why else would I ask someone else's opinion?

"UCI works better" is not an answer to the question, because it's not factually true. It may be subjectively true (or false!) but then it is useful to know why that is the case. Note that this isn't about anyone being "right" or "wrong", just about understanding a point of view.

Do you actually think the OP came here for a chess engine interface protocol war? He did not.

Of course not. So is there any particular reason you're derailing this thread by turning it into one?
You may take care to note (or not) that any discussion of the merits of CECP are in response to claimed advantages of UCI.

[hgm]

Don't waste your breath on a guy that would rather look stupid by not admitting he is wrong than ever admitting there could be the slightest discrepancy between reality and his opinion. Let's just say he is entitled to his opinion, no matter how misguided it is, especially since it should already be clear to everyone that he is just trolling in an attempt to derail this discussion.