🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jun 23, 2017 11:58 AM UTC:
Normal chess programs probably do the capture-the-rook thing because it was a simple fix to a problem with FRC and they weren't thinking in any larger context.
With FRC on Game Courier, I was concerned with consistency across different games, and not at all with how the game had been handled by other programs. Since in most Game Courier games, castling was handled as the move of a single piece to a space it actually goes to, I just extended that to work with FRC.
If there is an ambiguity, a dialog box will ask you if you are making a standard move or a castling move. Prompting the user is not radical, as normal chess programs do this too when you move a pawn to the last rank.
Game Courier can do this too, as it commonly does for promotions. But I did write Game Courier in stages, and when I first put together a preset for FRC around 14 years ago, Game Courier didn't have all the capabilities it has now. Back then, GAME Code did not yet exist as a Turing-complete programming language, moves could be entered only by writing notation, and the commands now in use for diambiguating moves through prompts were not yet available. The early preset probably just randomized the position without enforcing any rules. When rule enforcement was finally made possible, moves were still being entered only by notation, and the mechanisms for handling mouse moves, which includes prompts for disambiguating moves, were not yet in place.
With FRC on Game Courier, I was concerned with consistency across different games, and not at all with how the game had been handled by other programs. Since in most Game Courier games, castling was handled as the move of a single piece to a space it actually goes to, I just extended that to work with FRC.
Game Courier can do this too, as it commonly does for promotions. But I did write Game Courier in stages, and when I first put together a preset for FRC around 14 years ago, Game Courier didn't have all the capabilities it has now. Back then, GAME Code did not yet exist as a Turing-complete programming language, moves could be entered only by writing notation, and the commands now in use for diambiguating moves through prompts were not yet available. The early preset probably just randomized the position without enforcing any rules. When rule enforcement was finally made possible, moves were still being entered only by notation, and the mechanisms for handling mouse moves, which includes prompts for disambiguating moves, were not yet in place.