Re: [gnugo-devel] dynamic connection status?

[Daniel Bump]

Trevor wrote:

> What's the status of the dynamic connection reader?  There
> are a lot of problems that have connection problems, but I've
> been reluctant to spend much time on them.

To begin with, when you compile with --enable-experimental-connections,
or when you run with the command line option --experimental_connections,
a parameter called experimental_semeai gets set. Actually we
should change the command line option to --experimental-connections
for consistency. (And similarly --experimental-semeai.)

Currently it does nothing. However the first step would be
to write some code calling the existing readconnect functions
which only gets called when this parameter is set.

The most definitive outline of how this would work is in
Gunnar's message:

http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/gnugo-devel/2001-December/000754.html

In this, Gunnar wrote:

> Dan wrote:
> > Maybe we should link the code in right now on an experimental
> > basis, the same way the new semeai code is experimentally
> > linked in now.
> 
> For the time being I think it's more constructive to work with the
> connect/disconnect test cases in connect.tst and connection.tst.

But I disagree for two reasons: 

(1) Linking it in has to be done anyway, unless we abandon
this code and start again from scratch, so why not do it now;

(2) We will definitely get useful information by being able
to play real games using this code. For one thing we will be
able to use the regressions to identify the moment when
the new code does more good than harm.

Incidentally (ignoring timing matters, which I'm testing
right now) we've reached that point with the experimental
semeai code, and we wouldn't know that if we didn't have
the experimental compilation option.

I'll refer to Gunnar's message cited above as the best
statement of how to proceed from here.

> What's the status of the atari-atari code?  Is it stable enough
> to be worth my examining?

Yes. Gunnar and Inge have been working on it. It's called and
finds moves in almost every game. One thing that should be
considered a FIXME is that currently it can find at most
one combination per move.

Dan