Programming A Chess Engine In Pure Javascript Part 4 - File And Rank Arrays

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A tutorial series programming a chess engine in Javascript

NOTE I use TextWrangler for writing code on the Mac. You can use any text editor you like on any OS you like.

I've added ads, as it seems it's the only way to appear in searches!

[yp]

I have just come across your channel and playlist today. Thank you so much for the videos. I like chess and I like programming. But I have always assumed that programming a chess engine is beyond my scope. "I can do a bit of running, but winning olympic gold medal in running is beyond my scope." But with support from your playlist, I will be able to do it. It would have taken ages to figure out strategies for numbering of board on my own. I would have confined to think within 64 squares not 120.

[BlueFeverSoft]

Great! It is not as difficult as you would think - the search algorithm is the worst part, other than that the problem is always unseen bugs. I also did a C series, that one is a bit more detailed.

[yp]

// at the end in the code I also added following two lines...
console.log(FilesBrd);
console.log(RanksBrd);

[nacancanyokamziku]

why go with arrays when there are typed arrays? i get it most performance comes from high level design decisions rather than microoptimizations, but using typed arrays instead of arrays is mostly straightforward

[MrFata]

I believe that Int32Array was not available in 2013 (when this video was created). Anyway nowdays you have this option and it is much faster.

[looch]

Dude, this needs to be said. @ 4:05 I wish you would explain the process in much more detail. Not everyone watching these videos have been programming for 10+ years. It is not clear exactly what you are doing inside of that loop. you have sq = positionFinder(rank, file); What exactly are you doing here?