On Wed, 2007-03-07 at 15:46 -0700, Markus Enzenberger wrote:
or are you using it to implement other interesting features such as pondering?
Pondering is an implementation detail of a GTP engine, I see no reason why there should be support for pondering in the protocol.
But there is actually a GOOD reason to support it.
Having support from the protocol is a huge blessing and lowers the barrier for less experienced programmers substantially.
Also, it's not like it adds a great deal of complexity to a new GTP protocol, it only requires one additional provision, the ability to pass a ponder move to the controller. Of course a controller or user interface doesn't have to support pondering just because it's possible and an engine does not have to ponder (or pass a ponder move) if it wants to implement pondering it's own way.
This is not a big deal to me. I know how to do pondering without support of the protocol (Lazarus ponders on CGOS) and my only motivation for suggesting it is that the less experienced programmers will thank you for it. If you are the competitive type you may not want that :-)
- Don