Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 21:14:49 07/22/02
I am attempting to use an object-oriented approach in developing my engine, and I have a problem and question about handling promotions. My problem is that my object-oriented design prevents me from handling promotion as efficiently as I'd like. I would like to handle it by storing the piece to promote to in my move structure, then to promote it's simply a copy of the piece type over the existing pawn type. Something like this: squares[move.to] = move.promotePiece; That's nice and simple, and it probably doesn't get much faster. Using an object-oriented approach, I have to do something like this: if (move.isPromotion()) { if (move.isPromotionToQueen()) squares[move.to()].promoteToQueen(); else if (move.isPromotionToRook()) squares[move.to()].promoteToRook(); else if // you get the idea } This isn't quite as simple, and not quite as fast, but it's not exactly huge or complex either. I suppose that it's not a huge penalty since we usually promote to queen anyway. I really have two questions regarding this. Can anyone think of a better way to handle this without the position class having to access the move class' private data? I'd like to avoid those dependencies, since if I allow them that kind of defeats the purpose of doing it object-oriented in the first place. Perhaps I'm trying to force a non-OOP shape into the OOP shaped hole. My second question is, is the case of promotion rare enough for this to not really be an issue? I think it probably isn't, but I have nothing other than a hunch to back that up. Then again, if promotion is there but it's still quite a few plys away, the slightly less efficient method would increase that inefficiency exponentially. I also wonder if it even matters, since one side is about to promote and gain a (usually) decisive advantage, it shouldn't matter if it slowed down horribly for a breif time. Any thoughts? Thanks, Russell
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