Nashville

[fred]

Hi Fred

 

Quick question about the new client:

 

I was curious whether the new Flash based client will still leverage any kind of embedded browser? I'm not sure whether it makes sense to try to design a "one size fits all" convention card.

 

As an obvious example, the ACBL might very much want its convention card to look identical to the ones used for face-to-face play in ACBL events while the EBU would prefer something very different.

 

In an ideal world, it would be great if there was a standardized interface describing how a third party could specify a convention card. You could then push responsibility for developing and maintaining said cards onto the Sponsoring Orgs. My guess is that this might fly a bit easier if the the language used was something simple like HTML rather than some kind of Flash object.

Thanks for your interest in this, Richard.

 

Flash currently contains a primitive html control, but it is not really powerful enough to be useful (it only supports a small subset of html). Rumor has it that future versions of Flash will better in this regard.

 

It is possible to spawn a new browser window in response to a click from the user, but most popup blockers will get in the way if you try to do this without a click.

 

I agree that it would be attractive for various sponsoring organizations if they had a relatively easy way to support a convention card that looked like their real convention cards. But of course there is also a need for a generic BBO convention card that will be used by default.

 

In my view it is more important to have an effective generic convention card than it is to be able to support lots of different types of convention cards.

 

My personal opinion is that the FD concept is a good one - automatically providing explanations of bids is extremely powerful. Unfortunately the FD application itself is not very good (sorry). In order for this sort of facility to become useful for average players with average computer skills, either the editor would have to be greatly simplified and improved or a lot of "macros" would have to be created (or likely both).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

My personal opinion is that the FD concept is a good one - automatically providing explanations of bids is extremely powerful. Unfortunately the FD application itself is not very good (sorry). In order for this sort of facility to become useful for average players with average computer skills, either the editor would have to be greatly simplified and improved or a lot of "macros" would have to be created (or likely both).

Personally, I would love to see a system in which the Convention Card editor was able to dynamically create an FD file. End users would start by choosing any one of a number default systems. They could then customize the system by enabling or disabling different modules using radio buttons or drag down menus or what have you.

 

For example, lets assume that I started with a Convention Card for a standard 2/1 type system. If I enable Bergen Raises in the "Major Suit Opening" section of the Convention Card, this would automatically load a Bergen Raise module into the FD file.

 

As I envision matters, the CC system should be designed to provide a simple visual summary of the system and also serve as an editor. The FD system should sit in the background and provide alerts and announcements.

 

Unfortunately, this would require a fair amount of work to segment bidding systems into different modules and make sure that they don't stomp all over one another. However, I don't see any good ways to avoid this.

[hotShot]

If there where an application that would be able to convert a convention card with convention list into a complete FD-file, if would be much better to bypass the FD file, because a CC with convention list will be much smaller than a full FD-file.

The main problem with the FD-data approach is that you need an entry for every bidding sequence (and against any system). This means an incredible big number of entries. To solve this you need a rule/macro based approach, where the actual sequence needed is generated from the rules defined.

If someone can make that, the bridge world will have a great bidding engine as a bonus.

[jtfanclub]

If someone can make that, the bridge world will have a great bidding engine as a bonus.

It does seem like, even now, if you have a FD card filled out, GIB ought to be able to play it. I wonder how much work *that* would be.

 

Probably more than I can imagine.

[DrTodd13]

I don't think the convert CC to FD discussion is going to be fruitful. They have different purposes. The former provides an overview. The latter provides system documentation that can auto-alert in some cases. Even less fruitful would be trying to get GIB to play based on current format FD files. Believe it or not, FD is massively UNDERSPECIFIED. The textual description portion of FD is totally ungrokable by GIB. So, CC is least specified, FD is more specified but still a long way from a complete specification which is what you would need for GIB to play a completely different system. All bids in competition depend on the meaning of those bids and FD is hopelessly incompetent here. I'm not down on FD (except that you can't alert an opening pass!!!). It is a reasonable tradeoff point in the simplicity versus complexity continuum.

 

I spent several weeks trying to figure out how to do a complete specification including competitive bidding. I know that I didn't solve the problem but I do know that the solution is more complex than my most complex attempt at a solution and that no one would want to specify their system using even this incomplete solution. Just look at Meckwell's notes. Look at the number of possible bidding sequences. How many of these do they document? Even by relating different sequences to each other, I doubt they cover even 1%? Yet still their notes are 800+ pages.

[Ant590]

Hi,

 

When I operated the vugraph in the EBU Spring 4's one pair had their FD file on a disc and gave it to me before we began. I thought this was a great idea (and it was most useful for the commentators as they were playing a strong club-relay system); I think it would be a shame to phase out the ability to have some kind of FD in place.

 

Flash is great news, I must admit that BBO is one of the few programs keeping me from completely moving to my Mac (which is too old for the fancy dual-booting stuff etc).

 

The worrying thing that you mentioned Fred was the ability for people to log in anomalously. This strikes me as an issue in a few areas, specifically

1) cases of abuse,

2) harder for new players to establish a presence on BBO- I for one don't allow any Private profiles to my table and therefore new members who don't think it is usual to have a profile are likely to be faced with many rejections initially which may be unhelpful.

 

But hurrah in general :(

[jtfanclub]

So, CC is least specified, FD is more specified but still a long way from a complete specification which is what you would need for GIB to play a completely different system. All bids in competition depend on the meaning of those bids and FD is hopelessly incompetent here.

I'm not real impressed by GIB's handling of these, which is often in conflict with the text, deciding that a passed hand has an 18 count, etc. etc.

[keylime]

Something else to consider for why I think a FD to CC conversion would struggle: if you play a method that is undergoing evolution, you could in theory cause a conflict when it "emulates" for lack of a better word from one source to the other - especially if there's oddball/non-standard conventions that a pair would use.

 

Admittedly the thought I had was to use a different mechanism to provide the desired convention card: a Word template that would be easy enough for users to plug away at and yet provide enough customizations for the advanced coders and crowd to modify for their using. Since Office 03/07 and OpenOffice are out there, might be the easiest route to implement in terms of cost and deployment. Any oddball conventions can appear then as a pop-up or an appendix to the opponents. I'm not a programmer by trade; am a hardware guy so this is just a thought (i.e. don't shoot me down too hard please).

[chicken]

however it would be a pitty if the zillions of hours bbo members spent on creating fd-files cant be transfered to the new client.