Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

General discussion about computer chess...
Tord
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:08 pm
Real Name: Tord Romstad

Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by Tord » Sun Jul 04, 2010 8:56 pm

atinm wrote:I wanted jailbreak anyway because I want to help debug Glaurung 2, add the "next game" button, without having to pay Apple for the dev license just for uploading programs I am debugging or doing for fun to my iPod.
I know what you mean. In my opinion, a jailbroken device is pretty much a requirement for any serious development, even if you pay for a development license. Even with a development license, you have to jump through lots of hoops just to be able to install a program on your own device, and you have to jump through the same hoops again for each new app you develop. Moreover, you can only run GUI apps, not console apps.

When I started porting Glaurung to the iPhone, I started with just the plain UCI engine, which I ran from the command line. I used XBoard and polyglot to play test matches against other programs, and to play test games against humans on the ICC. Without a jailbroken device, this would have been impossible, and to play automated test games would have been very complicated.
Is the stack overflow fixed in the sources on the website - or is there someplace else I should be downloading the latest sources from (svn repository?).
The source code on my web page is 100% identical to the version on the App Store, so the stack overflow problem is still there. However, I've described how to fix it in this thread over on the CCC. Unfortunately, I think your problem is probably something else, but this fix still can't hurt.

I greatly appreciate that you want to try to debug and hack away at the source code yourself, but please be warned: It's not pretty. I'm not a very experienced Cocoa programmer, and the GUI code was not written with the aim of being readable to other people. I've released it under the GPL for ideological reasons, but I admit that I feel a little embarrassed that people are able to look at that awful code.

:oops:

atinm
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 02, 2010 7:01 pm

Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by atinm » Mon Jul 05, 2010 11:57 am

Thanks! I patched the code with your stack overflow fix and have that code running in GDB now (it took me the whole morning to get the code to actually run in the debugger after jailbreaking - took a little hunting on Google to find the solution). Let's see if I can crash it again now that I am in the debugger and hope that the usual Heisenberg principle of coding ("programs under observation in the debugger will not crash the same way they do when running in production environments") does not mess us up!

I know zero about Cocoa, or Objective-C so I am learning as I go and so have no standing when it comes to judging your code - it looks perfectly fine to me based on what I do know of GUI code from my Windows and X/Motif days! I am just happy you made it open source so I have something to look at and debug and learn on (the best way I learn languages and environments is by debugging/fixing bugs and adding small features to code written in that language and environment). My world is C/C++ on Linux (and some MacOS where Linux and MacOS intersect - not Cocoa!).

-Atin

diverbelow
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:51 am

Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by diverbelow » Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:55 am

Hi there Tord,

Thanks a bunch for this wonderful apps on Iphone. However since i am using a 3GS with the latest OS4. It keeps bugging, it is almost impossible to finish a game as the app switch off by itself. Also sometimes the screen just freeze and no game can be played.

Are you planning any fix soon? Any updates on the app store?

Dying to play again,
let us know
Emmanuel

Tord
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:08 pm
Real Name: Tord Romstad

Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by Tord » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:03 pm

atinm wrote:I know zero about Cocoa, or Objective-C so I am learning as I go and so have no standing when it comes to judging your code - it looks perfectly fine to me based on what I do know of GUI code from my Windows and X/Motif days!
I don't have much experience with GUI code, but it's possible that GUI by its very nature tends to be messy and inelegant. Trying to handle all the almost infinite number of things a user can think of doing gracefully is a very messy task, particularly in a low-level language like Objective-C. Something like a chess engine, where the input is simple and clearly defined, is much cleaner and easier.

At any rate, good luck with the bug hunting!
:)

Tord
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:08 pm
Real Name: Tord Romstad

Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by Tord » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:05 pm

diverbelow wrote:Hi there Tord,

Thanks a bunch for this wonderful apps on Iphone. However since i am using a 3GS with the latest OS4. It keeps bugging, it is almost impossible to finish a game as the app switch off by itself. Also sometimes the screen just freeze and no game can be played.

Are you planning any fix soon? Any updates on the app store?
I can't fix any bugs I unless I can reproduce them. As long as I don't see any problems on my own phone, there isn't much I can do. Needless to say, whenever I find some concrete bug to fix, I'll do so, and when the bugs are sufficiently important, I'll upload new versions to the App store.

Tord
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:08 pm
Real Name: Tord Romstad

Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by Tord » Tue Jul 06, 2010 7:35 pm

Ted Summers wrote:I will keep checking back for the 64-bit windows and Linux versions. ;)
The 64-bit Windows version is now available. The Linux versions will have to wait another day or two.

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Ted Summers
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Real Name: Ted Summers
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Re: Glaurung Chess (Ipod)

Post by Ted Summers » Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:39 am

Tord wrote:
Ted Summers wrote:I will keep checking back for the 64-bit windows and Linux versions. ;)
The 64-bit Windows version is now available. The Linux versions will have to wait another day or two.
Thanks I will test the windows version until the Linux version is released. :D
"Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions."

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