Jules wrote:

I was just wondering how wide spread the use of GTP currently is?

Probably not very wide. This is to a large part because I haven't put together a good specification yet. As you may know or can read in the list archive, there was some discussion (sometimes kind of heated) last fall about the design of GTP version 2 and some draft documents were produced. I didn't have the energy to bring that all together and wasn't really satisfied with the "design by committee" tendencies in the draft specification.

The last months I have silently and slowly been working on a new draft, starting over from scratch, which is now getting close to being presentable. I'll try to put it up someday soon.

I have used the protocol for my own Go program specfically so I could leave the program playing against other programs over the weekend when I'm out of the office, but at the moment the only program I can find that uses GTP is GNUGo. So are there any other GTP implementors out there or is this going to be a one boat show?

I believe there are a couple of people who have implemented GTP in their (non-public) programs and I know there are a few graphical interfaces using the protocol. I expect the interest to increase when there is a specification in place and more supporting programs start to appear.

Personally I have every intention of using the protocol and leaving it in ready for a public release, as the preferred comms method, and I find it very useful for automated regression testing (ala GNUGo) and as an expert interface to the program as an alternative to simple text menus (for just playing Go).

A good decision, in my not so objective opinion. :-)

/Gunnar