Chess programming on YouTube: NOBODY CARES?

[maksimKorzh]

Hey what's up guys, Code Monkey King's (My YouTube nickname) here.

As a chess programming enthusiast I was raised on "programming chess engine in C" series by Bluefever Software.
Since then I had a dream to repeat his experience on YouTube, but I head several issues:
1. My English wasn't fluent enough
2. I couldn't write code and talk at the same time
3. I had a very poor and limited understanding of chess programming techniques.

In order to resolve the first two issue I've started a programming related YouTube channel to obtain a skill of talking and coding simultaneously.
Also I've been writing primitive (no stronger than 1600ELO) chess engines using various board representations including bitboards, I've also heavily studied how the move generator in HGM's MicroMax works and applied that in several projects.
FINALLY, for about a month ago I felt like I'm ready to start a new YouTube channel dedicated to chess programming only.

Here's what I made within this month:
1. 26 videos (20-60min each) on implementing 0x88 board based move generator. Series ends with PERFT test.
2. several videos on negamax & alpha-beta (you have a movegen and fixed depth UCI connection to the GUI, so by the end of the video engine starts playing vs itself in GUI)
3. 10 bitboard tutorials (I tried to make them standalone) dedicated to generating attack tables for all pieces involving magic bitboards for slider pieces
4. Some videos on newly created engine plays versus Toledo nanochess and TSCP
5. A couple of blog videos

NOW HERE'S MY CURRENT ISSUE is the LACK OF FEEDBACKS.
Even though I did quite a lot, still it's completely unclear WHO am I doing this FOR, if any.

SAD STATISTICS on chess programming YouTubers:
1. BluefeverSoftware released his legendary series and... disappeared
2. LogicCrazy released simple and advanced chess engine in Java serieses and... disappeared
3. CaroKanns (you probably even never heard of him) released magic bitboards based chess engine in GO programming language and... disappeared
4. Some guys tried it in Python but dropped chess programming in favour of more popular topics

Some ISSUES regarding OUR COMMUNITY I came up with so far:
1. Those who creates 2000-2500 ELO chess engines ALREADY KNOW what to do, so they don't need these videos
2. Those who just getting started... going THEIR OWN WAYS (I know because I did so...)
3. Those who interested in chess engines but don't code are NOT INTERESTED in implementation

I wish I could do something useful for the community with my videos but it seems that this idea is DOOMED to END UP like other youtubers who tried this before.

Now a little disclaimer at the end - I'm not promoting my work at any point.
I didn't post a single video during working on them.
I JUST WANT TO KNOW YOUR OPINION GUYS on WHETHER WHAT I AM DOING MAKES SENSE OR NOT.
And if so - then HOW TO IMPROVE THE FORMAT to make it youtube friendly, I mean short videos to the point without forcing viewers to dive into 20+ video series.

I would APPRECIATE IF YOU LET ME KNOW!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB9-pr ... /playlists

[mclane]

I like what you do.

Teaching chess programming to others is a good idea. And the footprints you create are big.
Think about Ed Schröder and his website. And before it was bob Hyatt, or Tom kerrigan or Bruce Moreland. Not
To forget John Stanback and gnu chess.
And before we had websites there were people who wrote books about chess programming,

The time changes and the media changes.

But the intention is always the same and I think this is a very good thing.

[maksimKorzh]

I like what you do.

Teaching chess programming to others is a good idea. And the footprints you create are big.
Think about Ed Schröder and his website. And before it was bob Hyatt, or Tom kerrigan or Bruce Moreland. Not
To forget John Stanback and gnu chess.
And before we had websites there were people who wrote books about chess programming,

The time changes and the media changes.

But the intention is always the same and I think this is a very good thing.

Thanks for your feedback, mclane, your words mean a lot for me.

[cdani]

Hello!
Seems that you worked a lot!
In my case when I learn about something I prefer to search and read. Like this I go at my pace. So videos are one of my less used resources. But of course there are many people that like videos.
The best luck for you!

[maksimKorzh]

Hello!
Seems that you worked a lot!
In my case when I learn about something I prefer to search and read. Like this I go at my pace. So videos are one of my less used resources. But of course there are many people that like videos.
The best luck for you!

Thanks cdani, thanks for your kind words and pointing out the difference between reading vs watching you prefer.

[Kotlov]

Главное что бы самому нравилось.

[maksimKorzh]

I'd like to thank all of you guys for kind feedbacks, but still it would be really nice to hear WHAT KIND OF CONTENT would you like to watch and WHAT KIND OF FORMAT would you prefer - FULL ENGINE FROM SCRATCH series or SHORT HIGHLIGHTS + DEMOS of chess programming techniques. I personally think that highlights are better even though they are more challenging, but really - WHAT DO YOU THINK? Thanks in advance!

[ChessRenewal]

I would like to see a Full Bitboard Engine From Scratch in C video series where the resulting provided engine is clearly stronger than TSCP and the search depth is not limited. The existing video series "Programming A Chess Engine in C" is very nice but the followup series on developing a stronger engine using more chess programming algorithms was to my knowledge never produced by that presenter.

By the way, I tried to compile Wukong using Visual Studio 2019, but there were several error messages: cannot open source file "sys/time.h". Similarly for "sys/select.h". Also a few messages about incomplete types and one "expression must have a constant value".

I used the built Wukong you provide in Arena and I like the way it plays and look forward to its further development. I appreciate the comments you include in Wukong's source code.

I was really glad to find your video series today. Nice to see some videos of your engine playing others with your commentary. Please continue your contributions to the chess engine community!

[smatovic]

I guess I am kind of old-school, prefer to read text and code.

CPW is a great resource for me:

https://www.chessprogramming.org/

from there are zillions of links to papers to dig deeper.

--
Srdja

[Gerd Isenberg]

Hey what's up guys, Code Monkey King's (My YouTube nickname) here.

Here's what I made within this month:
1. 26 videos (20-60min each) on implementing 0x88 board based move generator. Series ends with PERFT test.
2. several videos on negamax & alpha-beta (you have a movegen and fixed depth UCI connection to the GUI, so by the end of the video engine starts playing vs itself in GUI)
3. 10 bitboard tutorials (I tried to make them standalone) dedicated to generating attack tables for all pieces involving magic bitboards for slider pieces
4. Some videos on newly created engine plays versus Toledo nanochess and TSCP
5. A couple of blog videos

I would APPRECIATE IF YOU LET ME KNOW!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB9-pr ... /playlists

Hi Maksim,

good luck with your videos. For the novice target group, didactically not bad so far - just had a look to the first bitboard video. Is this agile programming? Cpw link added - more on topic will follow.

Best regards,
Gerd