How to become more motivated to learn Python

[DFS]

On 5/3/2016 10:12 PM, Christopher Reimer wrote:


> When I realized that I wasn't learning enough about the Python language
> from translating BASIC games, I started coding a chess engine. If you
> ever look at the academic literature for chess programming from the last
> 50+ years, you can spend a lifetime solving the programming challenges
> from implementing the game of kings.


We can have a good thread on python chess engines some time.  I'm also 
going to write a chess engine in python - follow the UCI protocol and 
all.  You're way ahead of me, I'm sure, but I did already look into 
algebraic notation, game recording, FEN and all that.

pyChess is a nice little game: www.pychess.org

The one thing I'm not going to do is review anyone else's code until I 
put out v1.0 of my own.  My goal with v1.0 is for the pieces to make 
valid moves.  That's it.  Following that, I'll work in getting the game 
recording right.  No 'strategy' at first.  Maybe later I can load a 
library of well-known openings and try to utilize them.

How far along are you in your engine development?

Getting the code for en passant and castling right looks to be a bit of 
an obstacle.

What's nice is the strongest engine (Stockfish) is totally open source.