Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!neat.ai.toronto.edu!root
From: diana@csri.toronto.edu (Diana Li)
Newsgroups: ont.events
Subject: Seminar
Message-ID: <8905111755.AA04479@harbord.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 11 May 89 17:55:38 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Lines: 38


           Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
             (GB = Gailbraith Building, 35 St. George Street)

       -------------------------------------------------------------

                            SYSTEMS/AI SEMINAR
               GB 119, at 11:10 a.m., Wednesday 31 May 1989

                              Jurg Nievergelt
                       University of North Carolina

                    "Smart Game Board and Go Explorer:
            A case study in software and knowledge engineering"

Abstract.  We describe the Smart Game Board, a software workbench dedicated
to the development of game-playing programs, as a case study in exploratory
software development; and Explorer, a program that plays the Oriental game
of Go, as a case study in knowledge engineering. It took four years to
build and perfect the Smart Game Board and test it in two applications: An
interactive Go calculator that provides basic tactics routines, and a
program that plays Othello. By the Spring of 1988 this powerful programming
environment and test bed had matured to the stage where a new member of the
team, who focused on game strategy, could implement a program to play the
full game of Go during a summer of intensive work. In the Fall of '88, in
its debugging test, Explorer won 6 games out of 7 in qualifying and
competing in the 4th Annual Computer Go tournament in Taiwan.

Although this project is unique in several ways, it is typical of
exploratory software development in  others. We present it as a case study
in the interaction between software engineering and knowledge engineering
that illustrates the decisive importance of a powerful software
environment.

Keywords and phrases: Exploratory software development, expert system,
heuristics, search,  computer game playing.

(_J_o_i_n_t _w_o_r_k _w_i_t_h _A_n_d_e_r_s _K_i_e_r_u_l_f _a_n_d _K_e_n _C_h_e_n)