The game of chess has a well-defined set of rules according to which
it can be played. Furthermore, these rules can be correctly
interpreted by a computer. However, these rules only say how to form a
valid move, but not which move to choose. In other words, the rules of
chess do not supply a computer with the sequence of operations to
follow in order to interpret them. Rather, they restrict the choice to
a subset of all possible sequences of operations (moves) to
perform. In this sense, the rules of chess do not form valid
instructions. Therefore, they are not a programming
language. Computers programs that play chess only use the rules of
chess as a constraint on the possible moves, but they use much more
complex algorithms to determine which move to make.
Leo Liberti
2008-01-12