RE: [Bug-gnubg] Re: Tutorial 2.00 - Comments

[Albert Silver]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:bug-gnubg-
> address@hidden On Behalf Of Joseph Heled
> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 11:27 PM
> To: Albert Silver
> Cc: 'gnubg'
> Subject: Re: [Bug-gnubg] Re: Tutorial 2.00 - Comments
> 
> 
> 
> Albert Silver wrote:
> >>- I know GNUbg is mostly about Backgammon and very little about free
> >>software - Yet, it would be nice to try and stay away from
proprietary
> >>formats like .doc files
> >
> >
> > This is merely what I wrote it in, not what will be made available.
The
> > public release will be hosted in HTML at Tom Keith's site just as
the
> > previous version: http://www.bkgm.com/gnu/AllAboutGNU.html
> 
> I understand, However -
> I assume you want to keep one "master" and generate export formats
> (HTML, PDF, ...) from it. If the master is in .doc format, anyone who
> want to change/improve it will have to use it. 

Speaking of which, I can easily break down the current document and make
a Help file for inclusion with GNU if the group is interested.

> Then some MS-only
> features start to creep in, and then only word can open it, etc, etc.

Wait a minute, let's not get panicky here. The design of the document is
extremely simple and uses basic features of Word. Technical aspects
include hyperlinks (internal and external), inserted pictures, standard
formatting such as Justify, some bullets, and outlining of the pics.
This has all existed since Word 97. You'll notice that the labels I
added to the toolbar description are all a part of a single GIF. I
originally used more elaborate Word tools for that, but transformed it
into a GIF to avoid exactly the problems you described. Also, the HTML
Tom develops isn't an exact copy of the document. One minor difference
is the way the highlighted text (to describe what a neural net is, and
Variance reduction) is converted. The idea of a single non-outlined
green background was his idea. His code is undoubtedly far cleaner than
anything nasty old Word would create. The PDF is done with Adobe
Acrobat. I can provide a version in a lot of formats, but really fail to
see why I should write it somewhere else if I'm not faced with
compatibility problems when providing other versions (such as RTF).

No Word macros or other such (unnecessary) sophistications are used. 

> > I will also make available a downloadable version in PDF at Nardy's
> > site, again, like the previous version. The DOC version was only
> > distributed to allow commentary to further improve it.
> >
> >
> >>- How strong is GNU?
> >>   The recently released GNU 0.14 is 1.18% stronger than GNU 0.13.
> >>
> >>This might be misleading - as in suggesting the new weights are
> >>definitely stronger than Snowie. This is only 0ply. The 2ply
> >
> > difference
> >
> >>is probably much much smaller, and that is what is being typically
> >
> > tested.
> >
> > I can remove this, it is no problem, or add what the results were
> > derived from. Could you test the 2-ply nets to see how much they
differ
> > by? It would also give an estimate for future versions on how much
> > improvement one could expect from the 2-ply.
> 
> I don't have to cpu power to do that. I am aiming for someting more
> modest, but it will take some time.
> 
> >
> >
> >>    GNU is made of 3 neural nets: ...
> >>
> >>I would think this is sort of "implementation detail". It would
> >
> > probably
> >
> >>make very little to the casual reader. Perhaps it should be
relocated?

It's relatively short and comes exactly 3 paragraphs after a highlighted
explanation of what a neural net is. It is fairly concise at 3 lines so
I see no issue. It also opens a window to permit others, wanting more
than those 3 lines, to go to your development journal. Finally, this is
the only place describing the engine as it is in the feature list and
this is where users are introduced to the brain of the program.

> >>
> >>    the crashed net, which is for backgame situations,
> >>
> >>Might be misleading as well. Crashed is for situations were at least
> > Ok, I'll rewrite this part and send you the modification. 

"A match was also done using Tony Lezard's Dueller software where GNU
0.13 played 100 7-point matches against Snowie 4 using their ideal
settings. Although GNU won with a convincing 56-44, subsequent analysis,
taking into account the luck factor, revealed that they were of exactly
the same strength. The recently released GNU 0.14 is 1.18% stronger at
0-ply (the setting of GGRaccoon) than GNU 0.13 at 0-ply."

I didn't add anything about the 2-ply being weaker as that has yet to be
tested. I'm not using this as an excuse, but recall that the Snowie site
said this about the strength of Snowie 4 over Snowie 3:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
- Strongly improved playing engine - 
 
Based on a new learning technology Snowie 4 is way stronger than Snowie
3. Here are simulation results between Snowie 4 and Snowie 3 in money
games:

Snowie 4 1-Ply vs. Snowie 3 1-Ply: +0.039 pts/game. 
Snowie 4 2-Ply vs. Snowie 3 2-Ply: +0.048 pts/game. 
Snowie 4 3-Ply vs. Snowie 3 3-Ply: +0.033 pts/game. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The difference between the 1-ply improvement and the 3-ply improvement
exists but isn't the huge difference you suggest it could be. I'd rather
give the facts, and if testing shows it really is much less, I'll add
it.

> >>   There are also programs using the GNU engine running on PalmOS
and
> >>Windows CE.
> >>I am not aware of any Palm versions? Are you talking about a Full
> >
> > GNUbg?
> >
> >>Where is it? If you mean my bglight project, it is just PocektPC.
> >
> >
> > I indeed thought your project was for the Palm, my mistake.
> >
> 
> Perhaps you can add the link to bglight
(http://www.nongnu.org/bglight)
> and perhaps someone would read it and be interested in porting to
Palm,
> Zaurus etc?

" Brief feature list

        Aside from offering an analytical engine of the highest order,
GNU's interface provides a very impressive number of features for users,
many of which are not available in commercial programs. It's worth
mentioning that GNU Backgammon is also available for MacOS, Solaris,
Linux, and other operating systems. There are also programs using the
GNU engine running on Windows CE (hyperlink to
http://my.voyager.net/F7/80/rudnitsky/BGLightCE/) and the source
(hyperlink to http://www.nongnu.org/bglight/) is available to be ported
to PDAs."

                                                Albert