Yitzchak Gale wrote:
A chess board is only 8x8, so depending on your algorithms, a simple 2 dimensional list might be the fastest:
[[Maybe Piece]]
That also allows you to write simple, beautiful functional code, using the wide selection of list functions available in the Prelude and Data.List.
If you choose a map from positions to pieces, it might turn out to be just about as fast to use a simple association list
[(Int, Int), Maybe Piece]
instead of all the machinery of Data.Map.Map (Int, Int) (Maybe Piece) A chess board has only 64 locations.
Ironically, it appears to me that Data.Map is *easier* to use than an association list [(a,b)] , mainly because there aren't many functions in the Prelude for working with association lists. Regards, Heinrich Apfelmus -- http://apfelmus.nfshost.com