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Sensei's Library

senseis.xmp.net

115 pointsTomte20 comments

Sensei's Library has been around since I first started playing Go back in the early 2000s. Not a single thing about it has changed, technology-wise, in that entire time; but the community is still adding content to it daily. I guess it's kind of like HN in that regard, but with twice the longevity.

It's a little corner of the internet I earnestly hope never goes away.

True, it's still a LAMP stack, migrating it to new PHP and MySQL (now MariaDB) versions every now & then, fixing a bug here and there, adding LetsEncrypt, switching from CVS to Mercurial to Git, etc. The last big feature I added was math formulas (2 years ago or so).

This project really told me how important it is to leave comments for your future self - especially, if your future self hasn't touched some parts of the code for 15 years :o)

Anyway, I'm approaching 50 now, so I assume that Sensei's will be here for at least another 25 years.

You're the Sensei's guy? Thanks! I remember reading articles here when I was learning Go as a teenager 20 years ago.

Do you already have a plan in place for what should happen to it after those 25+ years (universe willing)? Anyone to inherit it?

My experience is that it's very unlikely to find someone to carry such a site forward for decades -- everyone I met (except for 1 guy) loses interest after a few years.

Don't know if archive.org would carry a read-only version forward.

Wow, thank you for all of your work on Sensei's Library! It made a huge impression on me in ~2003, and has really helped me understand Go better and get stronger.

I work on Let's Encrypt. I'm glad you find the service useful!

Seeing how "basic" the site is made me think how little we hear about getting Slashdotted these days. Obviously not literally, but back in say, 2010, if a site like this reached the front page of /., reddit, or HN, you'd expect it to blow up immediately.

I can't talk about /. and reddit, but HN barely moves the needle. Today the logs say that there are ~5800 page views with a referrer from HN. CPU load: 0.07 :o)

The nice thing about "basic sites" is that they don't use many resources. SL runs on a dedicated (bare metal/root) server on Hetzner (along several other services), and as long as the working set of the DB fits into memory (for Sensei's this is ~500MB) I'd argue that it withstands /., but probably not the reddit frontpage.

Wonderful resource, don't miss the excellent section on Go proverbs: https://senseis.xmp.net/?GoProverbs

A particularly lovely one: https://senseis.xmp.net/?UseGoToMeetFriends

I ran a go club for years and from it 1) met most of current friends 2) helped two couples get together, 3 kids and counting 3) got connected to someone who eventually helped me get the best job I could ever find.

I think this happens because it functions as a type of personality test, and allows people to demonstrate diligence and curiosity without being as directly confrontational as chess. In a club setting it also helps around teaching; and having a clear ranking system allows relationships based on respect / status to form easily.

It helps that Go has a surprisingly powerful handicap system [1] - being a casual player I was able to play meaningful matches against a clearly superior opponent with suitable starting advantage, something that I have never been able to enjoy in chess.

That somehow supports the mentality of accepting your respective skill levels and enjoying the game together.

1: https://senseis.xmp.net/?Handicap (from the featured site)

My cousin got married to a national Go champion some years after I introduced her to the game, and I met my exgf sort of in this way too. It's interesting how it happens :)

Sensei's Library, Arch Wiki and Pagat card game rules are great resources.

Another great resource for the game of Go is the 'Life in 19x19 Forum' [1]

[1] https://www.lifein19x19.com/

Great site, I've gotten into Go in a big way during the last year, and SL is still the best overall free resource after all these years.

Sensei’s Library is one of the most comprehensive resources on any subject I’ve seen. Not only is it an exceptionally wide pool of knowledge, but excellently scales from beginner level information up to expert advice.

FTR Sensei's Library is all about Go (the game).

Thank you, I had to read several comments before I figured out which "Go" they were talking about :)

I love this site. My favorite page is https://senseis.xmp.net/?ThePowerOfTheB2Bomber , such classic old-school internet humor.

  "The secret of the B2 Bomber is of course that it contains not less than two empty triangles, which radiates absolutely no influence, and thus the shape is virtually undetectable on the enemy's radar."

As a 16 year old in the early 2000s, I used to spend a lot of time at Sensei's. I'm a bit saddened that at lot of the "get strong at" book parodies are broken, however they live on with the Wayback Machine. Here was one of my favorites. https://web.archive.org/web/20070224195507/https://senseis.x...

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19692418

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