You are of course right that less is not better. Indeed Sunfish often takes a more lengthy approach than say Micro-Max, because Sunfish is also meant to teach c

You are of course right that less is not better. Indeed Sunfish often takes a more lengthy approach than say Micro-Max, because Sunfish is also meant to teach chess programming. Examples include: - Using an actual text representation of the board, rather than a binary. - Having separate functions for move generation, search and evaluation. - Using a python hashmap rather than a simple zobrist hash. - Using a direct piece square table rather than some compressed/generated nonsense. I do however also think, that trying to shorten the move generation of some programs, which can be hundreds or thousands of lines, to something like this, is a good exercise in finding patterns, and has a certain beauty ;)