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Author: Tina Long

Date: 16:42:13 11/04/01

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On November 04, 2001 at 14:10:18, Jeroen van Dorp wrote:

>I read somewhere that Johan de Koning's interest had shifted from chess
>programming to other games - that might be a bit of an explanation.

Hence the term "He's done a Wittington."  Although that term has so many
possible meanings I immediatly withdraw it.

It appears to me as a long term watcher/co-buyer of Chess programs that the
Pareto principal (80% of the job takes 20% of the effort, and the last
20%...(never gets finished)) particularly applies to Chess Programmers.

They "hit a wall" where they've created a great chess engine, and any overall
strength improvement can only be achieved in very tiny doses.  Add to that the
Impossibility of actually measuring strength, so you can't be sure a
modification does actually help, and the pleasure and achievement must be hard
to come by.

Throw in some vigerous critism eg "Don't pay DeKoening any more currency..." and
the temptation to give chess programming a rest & to explore other Games must be

I like to think of them as great competitors retiring from the competion:  Lang,
the Kittingers, Wittington, perhaps DeKoening...

It's good to have the old stalwarts still here: Schroder, Hyatt, Moreland etc.
And there is always fresh new blood coming through.

Gees, even the ICCA now put out the ICGA Journal.

Tina Long,

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