Chess piece hierarchy design: inheritance vs type fields

Question

I have a base class for pieces

 class piece;

and an array containing derived objects

piece* board[8][8];

Advantag

Answer 1

I would go with the class hierarchy.

For finding a piece you can keep a separeted list for each piece type. So you know where to look for each piece type.

For comparison you can rely on virtual methods too.

Another aproach is to use a component architecture (like described here: http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your-heirachy/), but I think it is too much for a chess game where you clealy know the types and know that those types will not change soon :).