Greetings From Elephant: Our Software Engineers In The Interview – Part I

Published on 23 Jul 08 15:51 by Drakhor

The brainchild of our software engineers is almost half a year old, but already has more features than many other other analysis tools. In the first part of this interview, we talk to Wishmaster, Arngrim, Sape and Iarwe about the steps so far and the future goals of Elephant.

PokerStrategy: Hello dear friends! Please introduce yourself and your area of responsibility!

6Wishmaster6: Hi! I am Maik Girke, 26 years old and work full-time for PokerStrategy in the education department. In the forum I use the nickname "6Wishmaster6".

Elephant is kind of like my "baby" as I took over the project coordination on a content-wise level from the concept stage on to the current version.
Thus I take care of all the content-related questions: Where to go with Elephant? How should it develop further? In most cases, I also release the new versions of Elephant. In the Elephant forum I help out the members whenever I can.

Arngrim: Hello! My name is Ron Nanko, I am 32 years old and use the nickname "Arngrim" in the forum. As a software engineer and project leader of the software development I currently work mostly on Elephant at PokerStrategy.
One or two might eventually still know me from my earlier days as "Doc D" from "gm squared", when I was active within the scope of the German Underground games.
Within the Elephant project, I am responsible for the programming- and design aspects and coordinate the daily work of the other team members.
On the side, I often, and for quite some time, sit together with Maik to synchronize the further development on a content-wise and timely level with him.
I try to be around in the forum as often as possible and also to take care of the Elephant Live Support at times, which has really turned into a successful institution in almost every community.

Sape: Hello, my name is Sascha Paape, I am 32 years old and active in the forum under the nickname "Sape". For PokerStrategy.com I work as a software engineer in the software development.
My assignments are analysis and design as well as the formation of the software, furthermore the concept and the implementation of the projects.
I also support the quality assurance in the forum, or via Skype support.

Iarwe: Hi! I am Jan, am 24 years old and work as a working student in the software quality assurance area for PokerStrategy.com. I also make sure that the software retains our standards in quality and usability at the end of the development. I also support the developers in discovering and reproducing bugs. Furthermore, I check if bugs have been removed and planned features implemented. Alongside this, I can also be found with the nick "Iarwe" in the live support as well as the forum from time to time and help members with their problems.

 

PokerStrategy: What is Elephant anyway?

6Wishmaster6: Elephant is an analysis software for played poker hands. The software saves every poker hand in a database and enables a subsequent analysis of the hands and results. Elephant overlays the table with live statistics about the playing behaviours of the opponents. These statistics help you to adjust to the particular opponent in an optimal way.
With Elephant, it has become very easy to publish played and discussion-worthy hands in our forum. A few clicks, and the played hand is already posted, and you can get some feedback from the community. The statistics which are available in the database for the respective player can also be exported into the forum at the same time.

 

PokerStrategy: What makes Elephant so special in your opinion?

6Wishmaster6: The ease of use! Even while we were planning Elephant, we really considered how the software has to be used from the PokerStrategist's point of view. Elephant has become a tool that anybody can use without prior knowledge about database services or similar stuff: It simply works without any further setting, and after the installation it can be used immediately. All you have to do is sit down at the tables and play! No other software has been able to make things as easy as this.

 

PokerStrategy: Speaking of competition, how do you regard yourself in comparison with other software products?

6Wishmaster6: As a target group for Elephant, we had our own members in mind. Other software products mainly concentrate on pro users and those who think they are pros. Such a beginner- and user-friendly software as Elephant is currently without competition on the market. I would recommend it warmly to any player without any software knowledge as the only true software without a second thought.
Starting at version 0.7 we will also include other features though which are aimed at pro users, as can also be seen on our roadmap. At this point, the target group then changes. The goal is then to clearly outclass any functionality and merit any serious competition could have.

 

PokerStrategy: A great goal! How profound is Elephant supposed to become?

6Wishmaster6: Elephant should become THE poker software per se. We want to implement everything a poker player could need, no matter if he plays cash games now or tournaments. Therefore, an ample ICM module for tournament players will be included in the future. Elephant will thus not only overlay statistics at the table and in the software itself, but also specifically contribute to improving the own game: be it the examination of ICM decisions, the simple publishing of sample hands in our forum or the live overlay of more in-depth information on the table which give you an even more precise image of the playing attitude of the opponents.
An Elephant user will not need any further programs. Of course we draw the line precisely at the point where we leave the legal area according to the individual poker platforms. Except for data-mining and live overlays of instructions beyond the pre-flop game, everything is possible and already set as a concrete goal.

 

PokerStrategy: This sounds like a very big project. How many software developers are currently working on Elephant?

Arngrim: Currently, five software engineers are working full-time on  Elephant. Each team member has long-term work experience and/or studies in the area of computer science or mathematics to show.
Everybody has excellent knowledge in certain special areas at his disposal, which are complemented by a good all-round knowledge in the area of general programming.
The team was deliberately kept small and neat. This way we remain more flexible and powerful. Especially on long term when it comes to implementing new features.

6Wishmaster6: Only due to the skills of our team is it possible to achieve such a big project in such a short amount of time. You have to consider that the development only really started at the end of 2007. I think it's quite impressive what we have already achieved by now - furthermore, galam and I also support our members with problems and general questions in the forum. And we also still have Iarwe in the quality assurance.
The drawback of such a small team is of course the sluggish Alpha phase. Luckily, we have left this behind now and it was very instructive for each of us.

 

PokerStrategy: Ron, just like Maik you have already participated since the Alpha phase: To release an Alpha version to the public has met opposing feedback. How did you come up with this decision?

Arngrim: First of all, it has to be pointed out that we have thought long and hard at which moment we want to approach the PokerStrategists with Elephant. We picked as early a date as possible moment to let them participate in the development. After all, they are the ones for whom we are developing the software. Their feedback is extremely important for us.
Unfortunately, many have regarded the Alpha version as the final product. The version literally triggered protest movements as we obviously hadn't pointed out vehemently enough that this was only a preview after all.
Granted, the jump on the Beta version was a bit rushed, but I think it was the correct decision! If we had to go the same way again, we would probably user a lower update frequency in the first weeks.
By the way: our roadmap shows that we have nothing to hide. We want to produce the best all-round tool for every issue, and thus put the best-possible software support at the disposal of our members. This only works with the ideas of every member, and I think we're on a good way.

PokerStrategy: The first Alpha was released in mid February. How long did it take you to get there?

Arngrim: The idea for Elephant was of course not new, and it was already discussed in the forum in the times of the now shelved Gambler's Little Helper. In fact, tools like the Equilator or the ICM Trainer were developed with regard to the "big product". The actual planning- and realization phase only started at the end of 2007, not only because we wanted to release the previously mentioned programs in time before the end of the year.

Viewed in this light, Elephant was only a quarter of a year in the planning before the first Alpha, and is also barely older than half a year at the present point in time. If you consider that competing products which have been on the market since 2002, and you compare the features, I think that we can be very satisfied with the current advance in the development. And we also have planned several pro features which should be unique in their combination.

PokerStrategy: How many updates will the PokerStrategists face in the future?

Arngrim: That of course does not only depend on how many hotfixes are necessary - so necessary, quick corrections. An example for a hotfix would be if an affiliated platform changed its hand history format.
The frequency of the big updates will clearly drop though. Besides bugfixes it will include exciting new features. The SnG section is of course one of our biggest concerns.
To make the update process even more transparent, we will soon introduce our new patch system: under normal circumstances it should no longer be necessary to download complete, big setup packages. The software will rather actualize itself and you only have to download small update bites.
Especially owners of slower internet connections will profit from this.

PokerStrategy: During the development, you picked .NET. Why this platform?

Arngrim: Here I could really speak verbosely, but when it comes to programming, you quickly start a religious battle. To make a long story short, we went for .NET as platform and C# as language as a fast, robust application development is possible with this package. Added to this comes the long-term experience of our team with this combination. We often hear questions if the execution speed is not too slow compared to other languages - as a software developer originally coming from the gaming scene - and thus being someone who knows how important performance is - I can weaken these concerns in most parts. Not just because computationally intensive or -critical modules can be realized and integrated in C/C++ by us without a problem.

 

PokerStrategy: Elephant requires a somewhat powerful computer. Will anything happen in the future for the owners of slower systems?

Arngrim: Obviously, the tremendous amounts of data and the used postgres database require certain basic requisites for an analysis software like Elephant to even work properly. Nonetheless, Elephant includes a lot of optimization measures. We are always testing new procedures to make Elephant experience as quick, fluid and productive as possible. Nonetheless, a faster computer will certainly be useful for the later pro features with their detailed analyzes.

 

PokerStrategy: Earlier, you mentioned Elephant support. Many PokerStrategists might not even know this yet. Could you please describe shortly what it is good for?

Iarwe: The Elephant Live Support is meant for members who have technical problems with Elephant, especially crashes or cases in which the software no longer loads properly or at all. Often, we were able to help the users quickly and efficiently - be it via simple tips or specially-designed debug versions to figure out the problems. The support is thus a better forum for the really problematic cases, as often small details decide if  Elephant works, or not. For us it is thus an advantage to find problems more quickly and to eliminate them, and the member is happy about being able to use his software again as quickly as possible the way he was used to it.


PokerStrategy: How important is the community for the success of Elephant?

Sape: Elephant's success wouldn't even be possible without the community! The members help us to improve Elephant on many levels, like e.g. with such bug reports in the life support or feature requests in the forum.

6Wishmaster6: As already mentioned previously, it should become THE analysis tool. The members also help us with constructive criticism and requests. The previously discussed topics only cover a part of the work on Elephant though.

Arngrim: Exactly! Better let the other team members provide you with information about the other assignment areas!

 

PokerStrategy: Thanks a lot for the interview! We are really looking forward to the next steps of the Elephant!

 

Interview Part II

In tomorrow's Part II of the interview, galam, plexiq, eniki and khalthag will provide you with more information about further planned highlights of  Elephant. Furthermore they will tell you how you can participate in the Elephant project!