For the game battleship, count the unique ships on the board for a dynamically sized board

battleship.py

"""
`X` means part of a ship is here
`.` means it is an empty spot
"""

board = [
    ["X", ".", "X", ".", "X", "X"],
    ["X", ".", ".", ".", ".", "."],
    ["X", ".", "X", ".", "X", "."]
]


# the final count we want to return
unique_ships = 0
# tracking if there is an X in the vertical row above the current row
ship_index_tracker = {}

for r in board:
    # for row aka r in board

    # the index of the current column of the row
    i = 0

    # evaluate each element of the row `r`
    while len(r) > 0:
        if not ship_index_tracker.get(i) and r[0] == 'X':
            # if this is the last column of the row
            if len(r) == 1:
                unique_ships += 1

            else:
                # if there is a space next to it then this means end of ship
                if r[1] == '.':
                    unique_ships += 1

        # update the tracker to inform the next row aka r+1 if there's a ship part above it
        if r[0] == 'X':
            ship_index_tracker[i] = True
        else:
            ship_index_tracker[i] = False

        # remove the current element of the row being evaluated
        r.pop(0)
        # move the index of the row
        i += 1


print(f'The number of unique_ships on the board: {unique_ships}')