Planner

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Planner, Jonathan Schaeffer's first chess program. When Schaeffer started studying computer science at the University of Waterloo in 1979, he met Ron Hansen, co-author of Ribbit and Treefrog, who generously gave him a copy of his program, which Schaeffer used to learn how to write a chess program. For his master's thesis, he translated the Fortran program into the Z programming language (similar to the well known C programming language), as a code base to implement own chess knowledge and long range planning.

=Quotes= Jonathan Schaeffer in One Jump Ahead : My time at Waterloo greatly benefited from the presence of Ron Hansen. He was author of Ribbit (later called Treefrog), one of the strongest chess programs around. He generously gave me a copy of his program, which I used to learn how to write a chess program... Hansen's program was written in a computer programming language called Fortran. For my master's thesis, I translated it into the Z programming language (similar to the well known C programming language).

Everything I read about chess programs convinced me that they were ignorant; they had little in the way of chess knowledge. Of course, since I knew a lot about chess, it would be a simple matter of translating my expertise into code and voilà, success! I spent a year working on the program, adding as much knowledge as I could to it. The new program, dubbed Planner, failed to live up to my performance expectations. Gradually my enthusiasm began to wave. The chess knowledge that I had added was simple because important concepts seemed hard to program. The machine required a precise specification but my chess knowledge was imprecise. Further, for every piece of knowledge that I added, there always seemed to be an endless stream of exceptions. This was going to be harder than I thought.

I finished my master's thesis, titled Long Range Planning in Computer Chess, and graduated in 1980.

=See also=
 * Paradise
 * Planning
 * Prodigy
 * Phoenix

=External Links=
 * Planner from Wikipedia
 * Planner (programming language) from Wikipedia

=References= Up one Level