Ace by Stuart Neivandt (UCI)

[Norbert Raimund Leisner]

Hello together,

Ron wrote recently on Computer Chess Wiki Forum:

Engine Updates

ACE(2) (UCI)
new source-code-only engine by Stuart Neivandt
C++ source
- seems to be a complete engine: can someone compile it please?
- engine has no version number
- engine is badly named: there already exists an Ace engine by Adam Adair, therefore I name it ACE(2)
https://github.com/sneivandt/chess

Only binaries for win32/x64 are still missing!

Best wishes / Happy New Year,
Norbert

[zullil]

new source-code-only engine

Please anyone explain me how an author can write a chess program but cannot make an executable.

Perhaps the author is still developing the engine, and had no intention of having it made public yet? Unless authors know to hide their github sites, their code will be found and publicized by Norbert. (This still seems "creepy" to me, but that's just me I suppose.)

[velmarin]

Some authors are not members of the forum.
Some authors do not want their engines to be tested.
But there are many people who like to keep trying and collecting these developments.

When I compiled some of these projects, the number of downloads is often important.
And this does not only happen in chess, other issues also are offered only sources.
Total open source.

[Adam Hair]

new source-code-only engine

Please anyone explain me how an author can write a chess program but cannot make an executable.

In this case, probably because the author had no plans at this time to distribute an executable.

Please note that it makes it awfully difficult to test an engine of which there are several executables made by different people. The problem is that it makes comparisons unreliable when different persons use different compiles. In my view there ought to be a reference and that is best to come from the author himself.

I completely agree. Though, Linux users are typically expected to compile the source themselves. But I do not think that in our particular context it is too much to ask the authors to provide or appoint official Windows and Linux builds.

It really would be best if Norbert first tried to contact the author to see if he/she would provide an executable instead of soliciting the community to build one.

[velmarin]

How Stockfish engines are tested when a line is changed.
Komodo reads 1299, 13xx, 132x, ect, and so thousands versions.

CCRL do not, you are testers CCRL , you decide what to test.
And they do very well, thank you.

Norbert has its fans and a great capacity for work, a page visited by many people every day.

The code in GitHub is free, his criticisms seem misplaced.
Norbert does not require them to test.

[Norbert Raimund Leisner]

Firstly, a few words to Source Code Only chess engines:

In contrast to SourceForge where a free registration is sufficient for contacting the author at each case , GitHub has not such an option. If somebody want to stay anonymeous (without any email-address), no correspondence is possible of course.

But here are published the last answers by Mike Dvorkin (Donna) and
Stephen Lovell (GopherCheck):

Mike: "Thanks for your interest. I don't have Windows PC available but I'll see what I could do."

Steven: "Nice to hear from you. GopherCheck is still a work in progress and not a major release. As of now GopherCheck only supports a subset of the UCI specification; I expect to eventually add support for the full
specification. Right now support is sufficient for games using ScidvsMac
GUI, but this is the only GUI I've tested so far. WinBoard/XBoard is not
supported. I'm new to chess but have been programming for a few years now. I saw your post about *Andscacs* on TalkChess and was wondering if you have any plans to make the source available or release distributions for Mac or Linux."

You see: no objections against compiling of the source code!

Another point of view: We do not often know under which environment
(hardware, software) authors testing their engines - it works on one GUI but fails running on other frontends.

In reference to the argument "creepy": CCWiki is surely no chamber of horrors - because it always exists a "Creepy Crawly Formation"
http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/341 and a Chessmaster personality "Creep".






Best wishes,
Norbert

[Juan P. Naar]

Hi, I wanted to mention that Stuart has continued working on this. Source has been updated although there are no version numbers:
https://github.com/sneivandt/chess

I compiled a 64 bit version:
https://file.kiwi/ed595163#u1xt7QhD1gAZMoemXy4M7A