Baduk Readme

Yo dawg, I heard you liked Go, so I put Go in your Go so you could Go on the Go.

What?

I like Go (the game, also known as Baduk) and Go (the programming language) and decided to build this support library so I could build a Go-webapp to play Go (hence the Yo-dawging).

But mainly, I built this with the express (and eventual) purpose to play Go with my former (and future?) roommate, and he's much more amenable to my ideas when they involve wordplay, puns, recursive thinking, and self-references. (hi Steve!)

Further down the line, once Go reaches 1.5, I'm even going to venture making a Android app. So you can Go on the Go on the Go. :D

Usage

Import the package like any remote repo in Go:

import "github.com/acityinohio/baduk"

Then initialize a baduk.Board

var b baduk.Board
err := b.Init(13) //Size can be anywhere from 4 to 19, inclusive
//don't forget your errors!
if err != nil {
	//deal with err
}

You can set pieces using (x,y) coordinates, anywhere from (0,0) to (size-1, size-1). The origin (0,0) is considered the top left of the board. Setting pieces will automatically capture other chains (first checking the opponent's chains, then your own).

var err error
err = b.SetB(0,0)   //Sets black piece at 0,0
err = b.SetW(12,12) //Sets white piece at 12,12
if err != nil {
	//dealWithIt.gif
}
//You can even print it prettily on the terminal!
fmt.Printf(b.PrettyString()) 
//And get a score of the board if you'd like
fmt.Printf(b.ScorePretty())

My favorite part (and what will help eventually with the whole web app shtick) is that every state of the board can be Encoded/Decoded into a compressed, URL-friendly base64-encoded string. Check it:

enc, err := b.Encode() //Encodes URL-safe string into enc
if err != nil {
	//dealWithIt.gif
}
fmt.Println(enc) //Now do whatever you want with the string
var c baduk.Board
err = c.Decode(enc) //...like create a new board with the same state

This will be super useful for ephemeral, webapp-based games with canonical URLs.

For more details about the package, I've sprinkled comments throughout it like a good idomatic Gopher, which means nice GoDocs. You can check them out here.

Testing

You can test the package with the handy "go test" command---the tests are included in the baduk_tests.go package.

Why not call this package Go?

Yes, we all get off on Xzibit memes, but that goes too far, even for me. Think of the name collisions/children.