Jon, I meant to ask you this a few times earlier, but always got busy and forgot or something. Generally when you can download the installer, that is the only choice a person has. You offer it either way- installer or "book and engine only". I don't understand why the choice. If I go with "book and engine only", what am I not getting that I get with the installer? And whatever it is, is there a reason it could not just be put in the rar with the book and engine? Is there a reason one option would be better for me than the other?
Arasan has its own Windows GUI that can be used to play games, but doesn't support chess servers, and is fairly limited generally. The installer includes the GUI, engine and book and installs them all together by default. Maybe 95% of downloads from my site select this download and are using Arasan with its GUI, and probably don't use the the engine by itself at all. They are just chess players, not engine enthusiasts, so I make it easy to install a working chess playing setup (and one reason it is an installer is that you need some fonts installed to use the GUI, and also I want the program to show up in the Add/Remove programs menu for easy un-install).
But on this forum most users are a very different set who have lots of different engines, and use other interfaces such as Shredder, ChessBase, Fritz etc. They just want the engine download usually.
Jon, I meant to ask you this a few times earlier, but always got busy and forgot or something. Generally when you can download the installer, that is the only choice a person has. You offer it either way- installer or "book and engine only". I don't understand why the choice. If I go with "book and engine only", what am I not getting that I get with the installer? And whatever it is, is there a reason it could not just be put in the rar with the book and engine? Is there a reason one option would be better for me than the other?
Arasan has its own Windows GUI that can be used to play games, but doesn't support chess servers, and is fairly limited generally. The installer includes the GUI, engine and book and installs them all together by default. Maybe 95% of downloads from my site select this download and are using Arasan with its GUI, and probably don't use the the engine by itself at all. They are just chess players, not engine enthusiasts, so I make it easy to install a working chess playing setup (and one reason it is an installer is that you need some fonts installed to use the GUI, and also I want the program to show up in the Add/Remove programs menu for easy un-install).
But on this forum most users are a very different set who have lots of different engines, and use other interfaces such as Shredder, ChessBase, Fritz etc. They just want the engine download usually.
--Jon
Thanks, Jon. You know, about a hour after I made the post asking you- it did occur to me that very likely a gui was involved. We are in a little shell here and forget that probably 95% of Chessmaster sales are to people who have never heard of Arena, Shredder or Fritz guis- and don't care. They just want something to play themselves. And when I want a good game- that is still where I go.
Sylwy wrote:A complete engine. Its evolution , from many years, seems a bit similar to that of Crafty.
I think what's most impressive to me, for both Crafty and Arasan, is that neither Jon nor
Bob have totally burned out after all these years. To stay active and to continually make
progress is a difficult thing to accomplish. There are a large number of programmers
who have simply lost interest and faded away. I still miss Bruce Moreland's posts. They
were *always* witty, insightful and unique.
regards,
--tom
Witty- I can give you that. But insightful- probably best to look elsewhere.
Now Stasi's coming for you 
