DON 2.0

Official release of DON 2.0

Bench: 1893457

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DON 2.0

Today marks the second official major release of DON,
building on the foundation established with DON 1.0 and introducing
significant improvements in position handling, portability, and distribution.

This release continues DON's evolution as a modern chess engine focused on
strong search, efficient heuristics, reliable position handling, and
consistent performance across all supported platforms.

Position Handling

DON 2.0 introduces improved position handling throughout the engine,
providing more robust and consistent processing of chess positions.

Position setup and state management have been refined to improve reliability
when processing large collections of positions, repeated searches, and
different game states.

These improvements reduce unnecessary overhead and provide a cleaner and
more reliable foundation for search, analysis, benchmarking, and automated
testing.

Search and Heuristics

DON 2.0 builds upon the search and heuristic framework introduced in DON 1.0,
with continued refinement of move ordering, history heuristics, and search
behavior.

The improved position handling works together with the existing search
framework to provide more consistent search behavior across a wider range
of positions and workloads.

Memory Management and Performance

Memory management continues to be an important focus of DON 2.0.

The allocation and position-management infrastructure has been refined to
reduce overhead and improve reliability during large workloads and repeated
searches.

These improvements contribute to more consistent performance and smoother
operation during analysis and testing.

Universal Binaries

DON 2.0 introduces universal binaries for the major desktop platforms,
making distribution significantly simpler for users.

Universal binaries are now provided for:

• Linux
• Windows
• macOS

These binaries allow DON to be distributed as a single release package for
each supported platform while supporting the relevant architectures without
requiring users to build the engine themselves.

Distribution and Builds

DON 2.0 continues the automated build and distribution system established
with DON 1.0.

Builds are produced through the CI pipeline to ensure consistent and
reproducible binaries across supported platforms.

The release process has also been improved to make DON easier to obtain,
deploy, and use for competitive play, analysis, benchmarking, and development.

Performance and Portability

DON 2.0 continues to target a broad range of platforms and compiler
environments while maintaining a consistent codebase and build system.

The introduction of universal binaries further improves portability and
provides a simpler distribution model for users across Linux, Windows,
and macOS.

Looking ahead

DON 2.0 establishes the next stage of the project's development, with a
stronger foundation for continued improvements in search, evaluation,
position handling, memory management, and cross-platform performance.

Future releases will continue to focus on increasing playing strength,
improving efficiency, and expanding DON's capabilities while maintaining
the stability and portability of the engine.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has followed, tested, and supported DON.

DON 2.0 builds upon the work introduced in the first official release and
represents another step toward a stronger, faster, and more portable
chess engine.

Thank you for being part of the continued development of DON.