Being a strong player has many obvious advantages, which other people have listed. My concern is that as I get more proficient at a skill like go, the more basic aspects of that skill move from my conscious mind to a more instinctive level, and I forget the reasons for them. In some ways the ideal time to add a go insight to your program is while the insight is still fresh in your mind.
At 14:38 11/09/2007, Don wrote:
It seems to be the case that you don't need to be a great player to write a great program but it certainly doesn't hurt. I feel that it holds me back since I learned the rules just so that I could write a program. I believe it's this way with other games too. Over the decades, some of the very best chess programs were written by non-masters. A few were written by very strong players and often strong players were involved as advisers. It seems that it's good to have a reasonable level of skill, but it's more important to be a skillful programmer. All other things being equal, I'm sure playing strength is important. I personally believe there is a certain skill-set that is somewhat related to teaching ability and not highly correlated to playing strength. The skill-set involves being able to articulate what you DO KNOW. I don't know how to explain it, but I can recognize it in others - I know how the really good chess programmers think and I'm sure similar skills are involved for those who know how to write good Go programs.
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