I am new to JAVA...only 2 years of experience and I know my code looks like crap. I am somewhat embarrassed of my code and didn't even know that someone can view the source of an applet...
One reason why it looks so complex is because there is not one recursive function anywhere. Everything is iterative. In addition, I try to avoid creating objects and make everything static.
Again...I would never show my code to anyone...since its not really the "right" way to code.
Interesting, I'm impressed that you managed to make it iterative, it seems to go against all the pseudo-code out there for alpha-beta pruning and stuff...
Well, I'll tell you how I got your code..
If I view source on your webpage, it tells me the name of the jar
So I just downloaded the jar, extracted it, then decompiled the class files into java files
Its still great stuff if you only have a couple of years experience. My first programs were badly written, but I didn't attempt chess straight away, takes a brave man/woman to go from HelloWorld to chess in one jump, lol.
I agree its not good to use objects in the engine, or at least, don't make objects every node. If you ever played a chess engine called Java Chess, it might be dutch or german, well its all done with objects, and is kinda slow, my engine beat it 4-0 when I tried it out.
I think one has to sacrifice some conventions of java when making chess engines, just so the performance is as good as possible.
Sometimes I will repeat small blocks of code, instead of putting into a method, since the method call is also an overhead for the cpu.
But I think you should leave static stuff for only when its needed, mainly utilities, and tools.
So you could create an Engine object (engine), then run do engine.search();
I'm not sure why you've done everything iteratively, I have a feeling you may struggle later on when you put in more advanced parts, but maybe not.
