On Jan 10, 2009, at 8:16 AM, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
Dave Dyer wrote:
I think general hardware limits are good, because they will permit
more teams to be competitive without altering the nature of the
competition.
So in effect, it's an admission that the strength of some teams should
be crippled in a completely arbitrary way, because they are to good
for
the others.
It's nice that someone admits this in writing.
Please, don't sneer. Different people have different ideas about
things. If you don't agree with them, try to make them see your point
of view by way of arguments. Don't get personal, it won't help you in
any way. Rather the contrary, people will become less inclined to
listen to you.
We are trying to make computers play Go as well as possible. That
inevitably has both a hardware and a software side to it. So it seems
arbitrary to put limitations on the hardware. However, if two programs
are essentially the same, but one side manages to bring a more
powerful computer than the other, is it fair to award one program a
prize and not the other?
This is not an easy matter. Taking an extreme standpoint one way or
the other is going to be difficult to maintain.
For now I tend to be of the opinion that in competitions, one should
be able to bring your own hardware or run on standard hardware
provided by organizers. The restriction that the hardware be
physically present allows for enough flexibility that people or teams
can try different set-ups (like a row of PS3s) while avoiding having
people with access to a big cluster compete with people who only have
access to a PC.
But similarly to the competition of building the most powerful
computer in the world, I can see room for a competition between big
clusters that play Go as well. One doesn't have to be to the exclusion
of the other. Think of car-racing. You have drag-racing where they use
rockets to cross half a mile as fast as possible and you have F1-
racing where the 'hardware' is constrained within certain limits.
Mark
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