Talk:Parallelogram boards

Order of dimensions

When I created the original form of this page, I probably decided that n in n×m stands for the number of rows based on the convention for matrices. Now I wonder if that was a mistake, since MoHex (and also KataGo) will interpret n in "boardsize n m" (which changes the size to n×m according to Hex: Passing on the Torch) as the number of columns. The matrix convention also doesn't match our use of board coordinates: "c" in "c2" determines the column.

So, rather than attempting to fix GTP by claiming boardsize n m changes the board size to m×n, I think changing Parallelogram boards and other pages that followed its(?) convention might be the better solution. --Wurfmaul (talk) 06:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I think both conventions are in use. Fortunately, most of the time, the boards are rhombic, so the difference does not matter. I agree that the better convention is to be consistent with the a1 notation, i.e., columns before rows (or files before ranks, as in chess). As another data point: the SGF file format also specifies that SZ[10:11] means 10 columns and 11 rows. This is true for Hex https://www.red-bean.com/sgf/hex.html and also for other games https://www.red-bean.com/sgf/properties.html#SZ On the other hand, the <hexboard> format used on this wiki uses the convention size="nxm", where n is rows and m is columns. This is difficult to change.

I have updated the page to switch conventions. Selinger (talk) 19:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC)