Greetings, and a new engine

[johnwbyrd]

Greetings all. I'm very new at chess programming, having only completed my first engine called Superpawn. The engine is a bit of a toy, but it seems to play a mostly legal game of chess. Playing strength seems to be about the level of the Tarrasch Toy Engine or Tom's Simple Chess Program -- it's nothing to write home about by any means, but it was great fun to get working.

One thing that was useful from the beginning was to get a multi-platform build working, along with a test suite for running the engine up against a set of other pre-existing chess engines. This shook out a multitude of silly bugs in the development process.

In any case, I want to say hello to Bob Hyatt, who (even though we have not met) was very helpful to me virtually through his years of posting his thoughts on Internet forums such as this one. Additionally, the Computer Chess wiki was extremely helpful.

Interestingly, I'm particularly bad at chess, and thus I can't really justify why I've had so much fun writing a chess engine. Perhaps I wanted to have a bit of software to accomplish things I couldn't do myself.

http://chess.johnbyrd.org

[Ferdy]

Congratz and welcome .

[Charly]

Hi,

Many thanks for releasing this chess engine.


I'll test it in my leagues, in the "reserve & test" section as soon as possible.

Just a question : is there a number of version ? I need it to fill the "engine & logos" page.

Regards,

Arnaud Lohéac

ACCC (Arnaud's Computer Chess Corner)
http://aloheac.perso.neuf.fr/

[johnwbyrd]

Why thank you for doing so.

I make automated builds and regression tests on every change to the source code. Personally, I prefer rapid build and test cycles on software generally.

For your further convenience the current build number is always displayed at the top of http://chess.johnbyrd.org .

[cdani]

Congratulations!

[sedicla]

Congrats. And be warned this is very addictive hobbie

[johnwbyrd]

LOL, you're right! It's strange that it should consume so much of my brain. The world does not need any more chess engines, does it? Then why is it so much fun to build them?

[op12no2]

My wife moans that the tea bags are usually in the fridge since I've started chess engine development Congrats on your engine. I think it's like a mountain; it's there to be personally climbed regardless of who has climbed it before. But unlike a mountain, one never actually reaches the (addictive) peak...