On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 02:21:17PM +0100, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
> Mark Boon wrote:
> > 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?
>
> If the programmer has done the needed work to make use of that,
> obviously he deserves to be rewarded for that.
However, how do you account for the other way, which seems far more
likely to me, that a team has better program but not enough resources
to buy high-end hardware to run it on, therefore losing anyway? The
concern being, not only the quality of the program is rewarded, but also
the amount of resources available to the team, which seems unfair to me
if the goal of the competition would be to choose the best program.
This scenario seems to me far more likely than the other way around, but
I am not familiar with the actual practice and scenarios of Chess and Go
tournaments.
Maybe what should be qualified is really what kind of competitions are
we talking about, and name them appropriately. Is it a _Go program_
competition? Or _Go-playing computer_ competition? I think in the former
case it would make most sense to just run all the programs on the same
hardware provided by the organizers. In the latter case, you do not have
to worry about any restrictions on hardware at all.
--
Petr "Pasky" Baudis
The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty
in the morning feeling just terrible. -- Jean Kerr
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