What's the deal with Prolog?
-
(Someone jeff this post - I can't reply as new topic on mobile.)
Is Prolog really that horrible? All the propaganda materials I've found say it's great - not as a general purpose programming language, but in its niche of deductive reasoning it's pretty awesome.
-
Thing is, I don't remember much, but I remember we used it for a lot of things that would take two lines in an imperative (and probably functional) language, but ended up being insanely brain-bending puzzles in Prolog.
-
I see. Hammer and all that.
-
Yeah, it's ages ago but I had to do some prolog in uni. It's not a hammer, you can't really bang nails in with it.
-
Is Prolog really that horrible?
its niche of deductive reasoning it's pretty awesome.
-
I found it interesting to learn, and a good way to think about problem solving in a completely different way to what I was used to. That said, I haven't touched it since university, and never really come across a problem where I'd use it over something else.
-
never really come across a problem where I'd use it over something else.
It's really useful for driving the reasoning engine at the core of an optimising compiler. Those are really brain-boggling otherwise because of the sheer number of possible assumptions you have to make on the path to a solution.
-
-
You do accounting using a logic programming language? That's… different.
-
It's really useful for driving the reasoning engine at the core of an optimising compiler.
Goddamnit. Now @Ben_lubar will have more stuff to prattle on about. ;-)
-
I found it interesting to learn, and a good way to think about problem solving in a completely different way to what I was used to. That said, I haven't touched it since university, and never really come across a problem where I'd use it over something else.
Sums up my feelings too. It's interesting at first, then makes you realize how hopelessly inadequate backtracking is at solving problems, especially simple tasks. Then you move on to another language and use A* or some other general problem solving algorithm if you really need to search the whole space.
-
Now @Ben_lubar will have more stuff to prattle on about.
I think he'll need to implement floating point arithmetic using BIT first. That will keep him very busy for a long time.
-