GNUbg version 1.08.001 available

[Philippe Michel]

A new version of GNUbg is available at https://www.gnu.org/software/gnubg/
with the following improvements or new features since the previous version.

Playing skill:

Improvement to cube decisions at 0- and 1-ply and weaker levels. Cube
error rates are approximately halved and the repartition of errors
(premature doubles vs. missed doubles vs. take or pass errors) is now
similar to higher plies instead of being mostly premature doubles.

GUI:

New button to analyse the current match with one click instead of going
through a menu. Optionally runs in background and allows to start
browsing the results while the analysis is still running.

New button to analyse a file. This offers three usage modes:
- batch analysis, similar to what was already existing
- single file analysis, similar to the current match analysis above
- smart analysis: single file analysis of the most recent file of a
directory (presumably where the user saves its exported matches
when playing online).

Feature to show how the player's GNU error rate has evolved throughout
the player's history, as provided by the database records.

The above "one click analysis" features have added two more buttons to
the toolbar, and this could make it too wide for some screens. Using an
icons-only toolbar allows to work around this issue ; every button has a
tooltip and the settings are autosaved.

Improvement the the existing (but almost undocumented and only available
from the CLI) possibility to always show a list of players at the bottom
of the board

Other miscellaneous improvements:

Much more extensive Japanese translation.

Many bug fixes.

[Tony The Welsh Twat]

This is splendid news.

Can I ask a question? dice.c is different in versions 1.06, 1.07 and now 1.08.

Why? If the purpose of that source code file is to say "give me 2 numbers between 1 and 6" why would it need to change?

[Axel Reichert]

Tony The Welsh Twat <tonythew...@gmail.com> writes:

> dice.c is different in versions 1.06, 1.07 and now 1.08.
>
> Why?

In general, a "diff" command will give you the differences between
dice.c in versions 1.06, 1.07, and 1.08. "Read the source, Luke."

Axel

[Philippe Michel]

On 2024-02-08, Tony The Welsh Twat <tonythew...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Can I ask a question? dice.c is different in versions 1.06, 1.07 and
> now 1.08.
>
> Why? If the purpose of that source code file is to say "give me 2
> numbers between 1 and 6" why would it need to change?

You can see the various changes, commit by commit, at this URL:
https://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/gnubg/gnubg/dice.c?view=log

Between 1.07 and 1.08, the only change was to use the newer version of
the Mersenne RNG. This gives a different sequence of dice for a given
seed, supposedly with slightly better randomness proprieties if you
trust the MT algorithm.

Between 1.06 and 1.07 there were multiple minor changes, none of them
changing the dice generation itself.

For something internal to gnubg (not like the MT update above) intending
to change (and improve! albeit marginally) dice generation, you would
have to go back to revision 1.82 of dice.c, in 2011.

[MK]

Why are you such an eager asshole to patronize and insult
people? At the link I have bookmarked for years and given
again by Philippe, I can see the "diff" from 1.06 to 1.07
commented as: "Replace the original Mersenne Twister RNG
by the improved SFMT version", without even looking into
the details, but where do you see the "diff" between 1.07
and 1.08?? Relax Luke... ;)

BTW: Since you had once called me Luke also within the
same context, i.e. reading the manual, I remembered the
cartoons Lucky Luke from youngster years and have been
using it as my nickname against Noo-BG which I give the
nickname Buggy Bot... :)

MK