Houdini 2 Aquarium released

[Peter Skinner]

I simply notice that some forum members are purposely and maliciously perverting an otherwise informative thread into the umpteenth lynch party against Houdini, with no other purpose than derailing the whole thread.

Read the messages from Peter Skinner above. Not for the first time in a Houdini topic, he is just looking for a place to express his personal obsession, frustration, rage, envy or whatever other sentiment that is driving him.

In doing so, he doesn't show an ounce of respect for other forum members that don't share his personal pet obsession.

See you,
Robert

There seems to be more than my posts asking for the same thing.

Why can you not be honest about the origins of Houdini? You can clear this up in a matter of moments by just stating the obvious, yet you continually dodge it.

I respect the membership here enough to weed out the frauds and help expose those taking advantage of them. How am I disrespecting them by trying to uncover the truth?

So here it is straight from the hip:

Is Houdini based on Robbolitto?

Care to answer honestly?

Peter

[Ralph Stoesser]

I agree it is a good package worth the money. Runs okay on 64bit Ubuntu with 64bit wine.

Native Linux binaries would be great though.

[Houdini]

I agree it is a good package worth the money. Runs okay on 64bit Ubuntu with 64bit wine.

Native Linux binaries would be great though.

Hello Ralph, do you have any ideas about the performance hit coming from running with Wine64 in Linux, compared to running in Windows?
I sometimes get asked this question, and have no idea what to reply.

Robert

[Roger Brown]

I don't get your reasoning. What has the fact that something is a FACT has anything to do whether it is commercial advertizing or not? Advertisement usually contains fact; if it does not (e.g. lying about the price, or giving wrong specs of the product) the one placing the advertisement is in severe legal trouble, as he will be bound to honor the terms in the ad.

Hello H.G.,

I merely sought to show that Robert Houdart made a few short statements of fact about this product.

I do not think that his statements crossed any line with regards to commercial exhortations.

Of course it may be that the membership disagree with the view the moderators have taken on this offering which, to me, appears no more offensive than other notifications I have seen posted here.

In that event I await incoming moderators and their actions with respect to these things with interest.

Later.

[Roger Brown]

I really do not see the reason for the heat generated in this thread.

I have seen announcements for commercial products here on several occasions. The responses seem to be about Houdini and its origins and the ethics of its author rather than the statements in the announcement.

A new thread should be started for that purpose in my opinion.

Later.

This thread started out as an informative thread about Aquarium and Houdini.
It got disrupted by the usual suspects whose only purpose is to insult and derail the thread from its intended purpose.
Moderators see it happen, and do nothing to prevent it from happening.

Talkchess in a nutshell, I'm afraid...

Robert

Hello Robert,

Of course I realise that is the way of persons who have never served to be generous in their criticisms. I note the moderator comments with interest.

This place is not some place where members can be prevented from speaking their minds on issues which interest them and Houdini interests them. Let it not be said that here is no publicity and it is all free....

I mentioned the derailment but frankly, your point that persons seem obsessed with you and your engine seems to be true.

Sooooo, perhaps instead of expecting the moderators to delete etc. you might want to go the Rybka/rybkaforum route.

Then you can ban and delete with ease.

I admit that some of the comments are critical of you and off topic but selective deletions etc. would mangle the thread beyond my willingness to invest effort.

As I said before, I cannot wait to see what some of the critics would do instead.

Later.

[bhlangonijr]

(...) it is a completely original program.

I don't find such a statement on the Houdini web page. I find

"Without many ideas and techniques from the open source chess engines Ippolit and Stockfish, Houdini would not nearly be as strong as it is now."

(apparently this hasn't been quoted enough times, still)

Mike, I am talking here about the originality of the code, not ideas. Robert explicitly stated he wrote all the relevant code of Houldini from the scratch. I am not jumping into the topic without knowing what is going on. I have followed all the threads regarding Houdini's origins...
BTW, I noticed that in his website's acknowledgement section he removed the name of Crafty from it. I wonder what are his reasons to do so....

As a longtime member of this forum I object against the treatment Robert Houdart gets in this thread; I have not seen all other related threads. Please have some courtesy, and some taste.

I think it's good to see such first-hand infos from programmers here. Maybe they could be with fewer quality claims, to avoid the impression of advertisement (only). But that is really not a big deal.

[tomgdrums]

Surely Houdini is an improved, maybe rewritten Robbo. On the other hand, why you are not so vocal about original, commercial Fritzes, Juniors, Hiarcses and Shredders? They are 200 Elo points weaker than Houdini and 150 Elo points weaker than many open source programs, and some of them appeared 2 years ago in the form of free open sources. Isn't that called idiocy, incompetence, laziness in the field of professional CC, and a commercial lie to call them "strong"? The supreme goal of professional CC is to be an original idiot? In the commercial domain I find both the thievery and the cult of original idiocy as pretty bothering.

Kai

If you look at my history, I have been very vocal against other commercial products.

I was one of the first to call Rybka a clone before CCT7. I have been critical of Junior and Shredder. With that said I have never had anything bad to say about Hiarcs, mainly because I have never found anything to be wrong with the product, and the author answers questions quick rapidly.

I have _never_ been a fan of Chessbase products, and I think that is quite apparent as well.

So I am not just out to get Robert. I just want some honesty from the man. Until I get it, he can expect more from me.

I don't care if a program is weaker than another and wishes to be commercial. This has zero to do with Houdini's strength. It is the strongest current engine, but not because it is original. Once he admits publically that Houdini is based on Robbolitto, I will be more than happy with the man.

Peter

What problem do you have with Junior and Shredder?

[Peter Skinner]

What problem do you have with Junior and Shredder?

It had to do with their projected elo increases based on version, and little to no gain.

I haven't had issues with either in years.

Peter

[Ralph Stoesser]

Robert, for sure there is a noticeable performance hit on my machine (AMD Phenom). I will try to estimate the nps difference with a few positions tomorrow morning and will report back then. Meanwhile you could make some linux binaries.

[Laskos]

Surely Houdini is an improved, maybe rewritten Robbo. On the other hand, why you are not so vocal about original, commercial Fritzes, Juniors, Hiarcses and Shredders? They are 200 Elo points weaker than Houdini and 150 Elo points weaker than many open source programs, and some of them appeared 2 years ago in the form of free open sources. Isn't that called idiocy, incompetence, laziness in the field of professional CC, and a commercial lie to call them "strong"? The supreme goal of professional CC is to be an original idiot? In the commercial domain I find both the thievery and the cult of original idiocy as pretty bothering.

Kai

If you look at my history, I have been very vocal against other commercial products.

I was one of the first to call Rybka a clone before CCT7. I have been critical of Junior and Shredder. With that said I have never had anything bad to say about Hiarcs, mainly because I have never found anything to be wrong with the product, and the author answers questions quick rapidly.

I have _never_ been a fan of Chessbase products, and I think that is quite apparent as well.

So I am not just out to get Robert. I just want some honesty from the man. Until I get it, he can expect more from me.

I don't care if a program is weaker than another and wishes to be commercial. This has zero to do with Houdini's strength. It is the strongest current engine, but not because it is original. Once he admits publically that Houdini is based on Robbolitto, I will be more than happy with the man.

Peter

I think the strength must be considered, as there are no other clear features by which to judge an engine (style, for example, is pretty fuzzy). About those commercial engines I mentioned, the _professional_ authors of those failed three times in the last ~7 years.

1. They did not use or assimilated Fuit 2.1. Someone else directly (too directly) used and assimilated it.

2. They did not use Glaurung/Stockfish. Many others did.

3. They did not use Ippos. Many others did directly, or used ideas from them.

My claim is that the _professional_ CC programmers of Fritz, Junior, Hiarcs and Shredder repeatedly have shown themselves as at least incompetent and lazy, if not as idiots. How many hours they work on each release? Do they think that with marketing tricks, fame and stupid "originality" they can get away, and sell their "original" crap for a living?
I basically agree with you on Houdini, but if I am not constantly barking at many others, I wouldn't bark specifically at Houdini, I am not a professional barker.

Kai