Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#61

Post by gruseom »

foljs wrote: post #50
gruseom wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that he won because he's a great programmer, not because he used Lisp. Given that people have argued that the absence of Lisp winners from such competitions is evidence against Lisp's greatness (I'm going by memory here and don't have time to dredge up the record), it seems relevant to point out when it does happen.

So, essentially: a) given that people has made bad arguments before b) it "seems relevant" to make bad arguments in the opposite direction now Huh?

It's relevant because it's a counterexample. Now people can't say, "If Lisp is so good why don't people win these things with it?" They have to say things like this instead:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1961546

Obviously the OP is relevant for other, better reasons than this, but that's what my comment meant.

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#62

Post by natep »

foljs wrote: post #50
gruseom wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that he won because he's a great programmer, not because he used Lisp. Given that people have argued that the absence of Lisp winners from such competitions is evidence against Lisp's greatness (I'm going by memory here and don't have time to dredge up the record), it seems relevant to point out when it does happen.

So, essentially: a) given that people has made bad arguments before b) it "seems relevant" to make bad arguments in the opposite direction now Huh?

I think it's worth pointing out that not only is the argument logically incorrect, it's based on incorrect facts. For example:

A: "Lisp sucks. If it didn't, we'd see it winning contests or something"

B: "But it has been used to win a contest. Besides, you're really bad at making an argument"

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#63

Post by aidenn0 »

eru wrote: post #49
lmaonade wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After seeing Gábor’s performance, many participants commented that they would be taking a new look at the 1000 year old country. "Bocsimako is the proof that Hungary is best for AI algorithms", quipped one player.

Being born and educated in Hungary is even better. Compare John von Neumann, Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner. They changed the education system, and no longer used the one they had around 1900. Unfortunately.

There is a quote that I don't know who to attribute to or even the exact quote but it's roughly "Only in Budapest can a man walk into a revolving door behind you and come out in front of you"

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#64

Post by foljs »

gruseom wrote: post #61
foljs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, essentially: a) given that people has made bad arguments before b) it "seems relevant" to make bad arguments in the opposite direction now Huh?

It's relevant because it's a counterexample. Now people can't say, "If Lisp is so good why don't people win these things with it?" They have to say things like this instead: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1961546 Obviously the OP is relevant for other, better reasons than this, but that's what my comment meant.

It would only be a "counterexample" if it was a valid example. This only keeps the "counter" part, but as an example it is flawed.

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#65

Post by silverlake »

swannodette wrote: post #14
silverlake wrote: post #2

A better title: "3 Time Winner of Computer Games Olympiad Wins Yet Another Contest".

Can't believe this Reddit quality comment is getting any upvotes. Google AI Challenge is "Yet Another Contest"? Though you may not be surprised, he is, http://quotenil.com/Planet-Wars-Post-Mortem.html/ .

I prefer pithy comments, but I can give you a verbose one too. I've used Lisp professionally for 20 years and I'm a huge fan of the language. But if there are lots of brilliant programmers who use other languages to build brilliant systems, how can I claim my favorite language is superior? The language is less important than the programmer. In this case, the winner has proven he's a very good programmer by winning other contests. The fact that he used Lisp merely shows that it is capable of doing the job.

Programming languages are like basketball shoes. You need a minimum feature set to play safely (ankle support, good traction, comfortable arches, etc). But buying a Nike Zoom Kobe will not make you the next Kobe Bryant. So what's the minimum feature set for a good programming language? I don't know. C appears to be good enough, while assembly is not.

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#66

Post by samd »

pietrofmaggi wrote: post #32

Lisp was clearly a fine tool for this kind of challenge, but the programmer was, as usual, the important piece of the solution. Otherwise I'll expect to have some other of the 33 lisp based entries in the top spot (the second lisp entry is ranked at the #280 spot: http://ai-contest.com/language_profile.php?lang=Lisp ). What about the top ten solutions? http://ai-contest.com/rankings.php 4 Java 3 C++ 2 C# 1 Lisp So is…

Don't most Lispers argue that just knowing Lisp makes you a better programmer whether you use it or not? Perhaps a better measure of how great Lisp is would be to examine the proportion of programmers who know Lisp and submitted a top ranking entry.

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#68

Post by awj »

silverlake wrote: post #65
swannodette wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe this Reddit quality comment is getting any upvotes. Google AI Challenge is "Yet Another Contest"? Though you may not be surprised, he is, http://quotenil.com/Planet-Wars-Post-Mortem.html/ .

I prefer pithy comments, but I can give you a verbose one too. I've used Lisp professionally for 20 years and I'm a huge fan of the language. But if there are lots of brilliant programmers who use other languages to build brilliant systems, how can I claim my favorite language is superior? The language is less important than the programmer. In this case, the winner has proven he's a very good programmer by winning ot…

To further abuse that analogy, it's more that programming languages are like shoes in general. You can play basketball in cowboy boots, but it's a less than ideal setup.

That said, Kobe Bryant could probably beat me at basketball wearing a pair of cowboy boots. Likewise for programmer skill vs. task vs. language appropriateness.

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#69

Post by aerique »

pietrofmaggi wrote: post #32

Lisp was clearly a fine tool for this kind of challenge, but the programmer was, as usual, the important piece of the solution. Otherwise I'll expect to have some other of the 33 lisp based entries in the top spot (the second lisp entry is ranked at the #280 spot: http://ai-contest.com/language_profile.php?lang=Lisp ). What about the top ten solutions? http://ai-contest.com/rankings.php 4 Java 3 C++ 2 C# 1 Lisp So is…

The language used was only a small factor. I was the next Lisp entry ranked at #280. Programmer quality and experience are far more important.

Re: Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest

#70

Post by aerique »

Zak wrote: post #43
pietrofmaggi wrote: post #32

Lisp was clearly a fine tool for this kind of challenge, but the programmer was, as usual, the important piece of the solution. Otherwise I'll expect to have some other of the 33 lisp based entries in the top spot (the second lisp entry is ranked at the #280 spot: http://ai-contest.com/language_profile.php?lang=Lisp ). What about the top ten solutions? http://ai-contest.com/rankings.php 4 Java 3 C++ 2 C# 1 Lisp So is…

I find the mix of languages found in the top 100 interesting. Smart is obviously a big factor in determining the winners. Speed was a factor in the contest as well, with a 1 second per move time limit. Based on that, I'd expect to see the faster of what Paul Graham calls "languages for smart people" near the top. Lisp, Haskell, ML and Lua come to mind. That didn't happen. What follows are observations about things I…

Any language you could get working on the official server and you wrote a starter pack for would be supported. That's one of the nice things I like about this challenge as opposed to other competitions which are generally restricted to Java, C# and / or Python.

That said there were quite some initial problems getting some languages working since they were running on a very old Ubuntu.

Post reply on HN