I wonder why algebraic notation?

OK, if you honestly can't see a problem with two completely different moves having the exact same descriptive notation, and if you truly become completely discombobulated by a 180 degree turn, then you've finally convinced me that you have no chance of understanding your errors.  

Rave on!

I personally prefer Descriptive.  It's what I learned first, and how my mind naturally thinks of the chess moves.  I also find it more attractive to look at and read through.  Having said that Algebraic is simply how things are going, and I'm going to have to be OK with that.  It still takes me a little longer to record my moves (not long, but an extra second or two to verify my square, etc), than it ever did using Descriptive, but, oh well. 

One thing I love about playing online is that the computer naturally records your moves for you - so playing here it's not a problem.  And, when I post analysis on some of my games, I use Algebraic, so I'm slowly becoming more adept at it.

I wonder, maybe someone who knows more about computers can answer this - is Algebraic easier for a computer to work through and interpret?  If so, maybe that is one reason Algebraic is so much more popular - because it's easier to program into engines and whatnot.  But, that's just a question, I don't know enough about computers to pose it as a theory ...

Algebraic notation sucks.

Descriptive notation sucks.

Numeric notation Rules!

When you're playing as black, do you picture the board with black pieces at the top or the bottom? If you have the black pieces nearest you at the bottom, presumably you rotate the coordinate system so that a1 is in the top right corner. When you are black and hear or read "d7", do you naturally "see" your queen's pawn? 

Two completely different moves can have the exact same algebraic notation too. In both systems, one needs to know whose move it is. That's usually fine on the printed page because there is a notational difference, but it can be ambiguous in speech - context is needed.

Presumably you are not discombobulated by 90 degree turns either - as when you are watching a game from the side. 

Good point, white's knight on g3 and black's knight on f6 can both move to e4, so Ne4 by itself is ambiguous, and the only way to remove that ambiguity is to know who's move it is.

Not sure why you think it's a bad point when you're making exactly the same point as corpsporc. 

So, both algebraic and descriptive suffer from a potential ambiguity problem. One can't be declared superior to the other on those grounds.

algebraic works better with all languages and computers i use a combination myself old habit

By itself, you wouldn't know.  In a numbered move list, you'd know.  Bad point. 

When I watch a game from the side, I don't think about any notation.  But if I play back a recorded game from a paper list in algebraic and I'm Black, I can't rely on White's grid perspective, I must use Black's.  c4 is not in the same location in White's perspective.  So, two different grids, as it were.

But again, it's if the grid's on the board, no problem.  But you have to refer to the grid, if you're unfamiliar.

Ditto. BTW, I like to set the board up backwards the mess with those who need the crutch. It's like hiding pawns so those who judge the material on the board by counting the pieces beside it will err.

Also worth noting: arguments that descriptive is older are nonsense. Long descriptive (the pawn moves to the fourth house of his king) is older than long algebraic (e2-e4), but short descriptive (P-K4) is much newer than short algebraic (e4).

As late as the 1880s, writers in English were using long descriptive, while short algebraic had been in use at least half a century. 

You must use a board with no algebraic grid and no orientation markings on it to be effective. Then you'll mess with not just algebraic people, but also descriptive.  Turn the board 90 degrees. Thing is, you won't fool me.

I like reading through a game score in descriptive and playing the game in my head, then sitting down with a piece of paper and recording the game in algebraic. That's called fluency!

Good for you!  I used to play back a recent game from memory and record it in descriptive.

I am now fluent in algebraic, after nearly a year and a half of studying chess. But I can completely see that, had I spent that year and a half of studying in 1960 instead of 2011, I would now be fluent in descriptive. They both convey moves and squares adequately, so it's really a question of "six of one, half a dozen of the other".

The difference however seems to be in the underlying philosophy, which can be seen as a microcosm of the whole transformation of society from the pre-rennaisance era to modern times along with the develpoment of the scientific method.  "Descriptive notation" harkens back to the day when people believed they were the centre of the universe. Pre-Gallileo this was the accepted truth, and is reflected in the player-referenced meaning of the notation: Kings-4 means something *relative* to which player is thinking of it - either e4 or e5. In medieval days, the tradition was to develop quaint little names for everything as needed. Hence the proliferation of the units inthe imperial system: pints quarts, gallons, ounces, cups, and so forth just as an example. Or chains, rods, furlongs, yards, miles, - each related to the other by some non-uniform ratio. This is apparent in the naming "KN, KB, Q" etc in descriptive. Quaint little names gives the system a nice old fashioned feel :-)

However, attitudes changed, and the concept of "absolute" cartesian co-ordinates became more prevalent, tending away from the human-centric mediaval fantasy. The earth was no longer the center of the solar system and the universe. Also, as the metric system was came into wider use as a result of an attempt to make scientific measurements and experiments easier to record and interpret, there was a social prototype for a more "regularized" system. The use of simple uniform units and regular scaling by 10's made the thought patterns more amenable to accepting a simpler alphanumeric co-ordinate system. (Interestingly enough this was not far from the 11-through-88 scheme used in physical mail correspondence chess).

So I agree that each clearly has a lineage and they are more or less equivalent. Nonetheless, when I hear people yearning for descriptive notation and flaming against algebraic, it conjures up an image of a mob of medieval villagers with flaming torches, storming the castle because they want to kill the witch who has brought the black death on the village.

Bears repeating!

I have often wondered how much the chess publishing industry had to say about moving to algebraic due for cost management. 

The average move in descriptive requires 5 characters, for example B-KN3, while the average move in algebraic requires 3, for example Bg3. 

Over a 40 move game that's 160 fewer characters (2 characters per ply, so 4 per move times 40 moves). In a book with 100 games in it, that's 16,000 fewer characters that need space on the page.

Of course, the actual savings in paper depends significantly on how the book is layed out. If the games are layed out in a two column format, the savings is only in the ink to print the characters as the same number of lines are required. But if there is significant commentary and variations in paragraph form, or the games are printed in paragraph form, it could come out to many pages of paper per book that don't have to be printed by using algebraic instead of descriptive. 

Another thing that just crossed my mind is that a game of Chess 960 would be very counter-intuitive in descriptive - should KN mean the "usual" KN file or the file where the actual N wound up in the current setup?

Why? Political postering is useless.

I was just thinking the very same thing. Descriptive notation totally fails in a game of Chess960, whereas algebraic still works fine.