Closed AustinT closed 7 months ago
Let's leave "value function" as it is. I also don't think it is confusing. We can add a comment or documentation to clarify that for some algorithms the value function is a (heuristic) negative cost function
Do you mean it is not a confusing term in general or just for the specific MCTS example which Kris raised above?
If you think "value function" is better than "search heuristic" in general then let's not change it; it is just a name. In that case I can close this PR.
Ok let's not merge this. I will close the PR.
Retro*, MCTS, and proof number search all use some kind of function to estimate the "potential" of leaf nodes in the search graph and choose which node to expand at each iteration. In syntheseus we called this the "value function". However, in hindsight I think this is a poor name because:
To improve clarity, this PR renames value function to "search heuristic" whenever referring to a "general" value function rather than something which is specifically a value function (e.g. in MCTS). I think the term "search heuristic" is both more accurate and less confusing than value function, and at least to me the term implies that it will be interpreted differently for different algorithms.