The coordinate system used in this exercise is a little confusing. As seen in the following screenshot , the array starts with (0, 0) at the top-left.
Because standard chess ranks start at the bottom (Rank 1) and go up to Rank 8, our array rows currently run in the opposite direction of the board.
Even with zero-indexing, we don’t have to use a top-left origin. If we simply place (0, 0) at the bottom-left:
- Columns 0-7 still map perfectly to files a-h.
- Rows 0-7 will now map logically to ranks 1-8, moving in the exact same direction instead of mapping to 8-0.
Aligning the array’s orientation with an actual chessboard makes coordinate translation a bit more intuitive.
This doesnt at all affect the actual exercise though, just makes it easier to understand. Let me know if this is even worth a discussion