Re: [gnugo-devel] Fwd: gnugo: stepping thru a saved game in ascii mode is difficult without () around current move

[Paul Pogonyshev]

> While busily clipping coins in a Souk teahouse,
>
> Paul Pogonyshev <address@hidden> was overheard to say:
> > Out of curiosity, why do you receieve wishes for GNU Go?  Do you
> > maintain a GNU Go package?
>
> I thought you guys knew each other. He's the Debian
> package maintainer, right Martin?

Well, I'm not involved in _releasing_ GNU Go (actually, I have
not been really involved in development for over a year now.)
Will know Martin from now on.

> > This simple patch makes the last move always visible, unless it happens
> > to be a pass move, and also prints it to the right of the board.  I
> > didn't try to implement move history.
> >
> > However, I suggest that you use some client with GNU Go as ASCII mode is
> > very old, inconvenient and almost not supported.  Try googling for
> > something like ``GTP client GNU Go'', maybe also specifying your OS.
>
> ASCII mode is useful for low-memory situations. The game
> sits in its own console for as long as needed.
> Of course the GUI clients are snazier.
>
> Frankly, it distresses me to see all these packages (not
> just gnugo) essentially moving away from support for their
> text-mode versions. There must be plenty of computers out
> there still, and for some time to come, which could use a
> very low-footprint GNUnix OS... Not needing to install a GUI
> desktop saves a lot of space and memory use/swapping, etc.
>
>
> And I hope you decide to implement a history function
> someday soon.
> ;>

Well, we are not dropping ASCII mode, simply it is almost not worked
on, because the vast majority of user base doesn't use or even if
they do, then only because they don't know about GTP clients.

I see and understand you reasons for using ASCII.  In this case, you
could also try running GNU Go from under Emacs, if you use it anyway.
Emacs GNU Go mode has been largely improved recently.

I think we had a patch for Readline support in GNU Go lying around
somewhere.  Maybe it's time to apply it?

Paul