Chess in PROLOG
Hugo Jose Ferreira
I'm currently writting a chess program under PROLOG for a project
at university. However, I haven't found too much information in the web
so far. Mainly the program will be based in the usual Minimax algorithm
with alpha-beta cuts...
If someone can help me findind papers and other kind of information,
i would be pleased. Thanks.
(BTW, I will be using GNU-Prolog <under linux> for easy C/C++
integration
for the GUI. However, I've heard about Strawberry PROLOG whish has some
predicates for builind simple GUIs. Any idea of an interpreter with
similar functions BUT for linux ? Thanks...)
--
_ _ _ ______ ____ ____
_ __ _ _ _ __ Hugo Jose Ferreira (Bytter)
_____ _ _ _ ___ _ _ Computer Engineering Student
_____ _ _ _ _____ _ _ http://fe.up.pt/~ei98031
Faculty of Engineering - Porto's University - ACM Students Branch
Ralph Becket
Hugo Jose Ferreira <byt...@gmx.net> wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I'm currently writting a chess program under PROLOG for a project
>at university.
>(BTW, I will be using GNU-Prolog <under linux> for easy C/C++
>integration
>for the GUI.
The advice I always give my students is The GUI Is Not Important!
You'll have your work cut out with getting your program to play
chess; GUIs are notorious time sinks and little credit is given
for them, regardless of how pretty they are (the exceptions are
GUI specific projects, but this isn't one.)
Ralph
--
Ralph....@cl.cam.ac.uk http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rwab1
Hugo Jose Ferreira
>
> In article <3ACC8B96...@gmx.net>,
> Hugo Jose Ferreira <byt...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >Hi!
> >
> >I'm currently writting a chess program under PROLOG for a project
> >at university.
> > [...]
> >(BTW, I will be using GNU-Prolog <under linux> for easy C/C++
> >integration
> >for the GUI.
>
> The advice I always give my students is The GUI Is Not Important!
> You'll have your work cut out with getting your program to play
> chess; GUIs are notorious time sinks and little credit is given
> for them, regardless of how pretty they are (the exceptions are
> GUI specific projects, but this isn't one.)
Yes, it's true, that's why I would like to have a PROLOG implementation
that gives away simple predicates to create a simple GUI! This would
give me more time to spend on the real implementation of the chess
engine... Anyway, about the engine itself? Any help? :)
Jan Wielemaker
>Ralph Becket wrote:
>>
>> In article <3ACC8B96...@gmx.net>,
>> Hugo Jose Ferreira <byt...@gmx.net> wrote:
>> >Hi!
>> >
>> >I'm currently writting a chess program under PROLOG for a project
>> >at university.
>> > [...]
>> >(BTW, I will be using GNU-Prolog <under linux> for easy C/C++
>> >integration
>> >for the GUI.
>>
>> The advice I always give my students is The GUI Is Not Important!
>> You'll have your work cut out with getting your program to play
>> chess; GUIs are notorious time sinks and little credit is given
>> for them, regardless of how pretty they are (the exceptions are
>> GUI specific projects, but this isn't one.)
>
>Yes, it's true, that's why I would like to have a PROLOG implementation
>that gives away simple predicates to create a simple GUI! This would
>give me more time to spend on the real implementation of the chess
>engine... Anyway, about the engine itself? Any help? :)
If you download SWI-Prolog 4.0(.2), including the XPCE graphics package,
you'll find chess.pl in the demo programs. It is a *very* old XPCE
example program demonstrating how to build a GUI interface for a
commandline program, in this case traditional Unix chess. In the light
of the current status of XPCE/Prolog it uses very ugly techniques, but
it does provide the routines to create a chess-board in a window and move
pieces by the user as well as under program control.
I've verified it still works, which it did. Traditional Unix chess however
has died away, so I adapted it for GNU-chess. You find the patched version
on (one line, but news won't accept that).
http://gollem.swi.psy.uva.nl/cgi-bin/pl-cvsweb/pl/packages/
xpce/prolog/demo/chess.pl
The whole demo should run nicely on any machine with gnuchess installed,
probably even on Windows. The interface should definitely be ok on both
Unix and Windows.
Cheers --- Jan
Nicholas Geovanis
> Hi!
>
> I'm currently writting a chess program under PROLOG for a project
> at university. However, I haven't found too much information in the web
> so far. Mainly the program will be based in the usual Minimax algorithm
> with alpha-beta cuts...
>
> If someone can help me findind papers and other kind of information,
> i would be pleased. Thanks.
The "Bratko Book" has some examples on chess problem-solving, on which the
author has published work. References are available in the text. There is
now a third edition, but I have the second edition:
Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence
by Ivan Bratko
3rd edition, Addison-Wesley Pub Co., ISBN 0201403757
> _ __ _ _ _ __ Hugo Jose Ferreira (Bytter)
* Nick Geovanis
| IT Computing Svcs
| Northwestern Univ
| n-geo...@nwu.edu
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