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Subject: Re: When PGN goes wrong? My list of the 18 most common PGN sins

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:35:43 10/18/00

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On October 18, 2000 at 16:22:36, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

>On October 18, 2000 at 14:11:03, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>
>>On October 18, 2000 at 14:07:24, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>>
>>>My conclusion from your list is the PGN standard is poorly designed. It lacks
>>>flexibility and makes outright bad decisions. It is obvious that some of the
>>>reasons for the variations are that there are *good* reasons to vary.
>>
>>I'm not sure what you mean by this.  What is a good example of a reason to vary
>>some of these things?
>
>#5 is motivated by the desire to work with the word wrap feature of many
>editors. Many people do not like to have the move number separated by a line
>from the move itself since they can be misled into thinking it is a move by
>Black. Omitting the space is an effective solution for this. It is perhaps a
>matter of taste, but there is no good reason not to accomodate this alternative
>form. Also, omitting the space is more compact.
>
>An example:
>
>1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4 4.Nxe5 |
>Qg5 5.Nxf7 Qxg2 6.Rf1 Qxe4 7.Be2   |
>Nf3#                               |
>
>1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4 4.  |
>Nxe5 Qg5 5. Nxf7 Qxg2 6. Rf1 Qxe4  |
>7. Be2 Nf3#                        |
>
>Note, the difference with the move 4.Nxe5. I prefer the first version, which
>avoids the separation of the move number from the move itself when the word-wrap
>feature is employed.
>
>Bruce Moreland listed some good suggestions in his post.
>
>"Inflexibility" is *my* primary gripe. See #13.


I totally disagree here.  The purpose of a "standard" is _not_ "flexibility".
It is preciseness.  IE the C pseudo-standard is lacking in many places.  Is
a char signed or unsigned?  Left up to implementors.  Do bit fields start from
msb or lsb in a word?  same answer.  Hard to call something a "standard" when
you can't measure anything against it, because _anything_ will pass it.

I despise 1.e4 moves.  Why?  a parsing issue.  I use the output specs and
have been happy.  I try to parse all the idiot ways of saying "castle" but
that ought not be a problem if everyone just 'read' the standard.



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