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Prolog is a good language to study in order to expose yourself to a "new way" of algorithmic thinking, although I could not see myself building large systems in
by jll29 5y ago
Prolog is a good language to study in order to expose yourself to a "new way" of algorithmic thinking, although I could not see myself building large systems in it (it has a lot of merit as an embedded language for certain tasks).
Python, as useful as it is, in contrast, when I first saw it reminded me of BASIC , after which PASCAL, Modula-2 felt like seeing the light back in the days.
- canadianfella 5y agoWhat does your last sentence mean?
- nextaccountic 5y agoHere's my attempt at parsing it: it means that compared to Prolog, Python feels very limited; just like BASIC is a limited language compared to Pascal and Modula-2. But I think this ignores that nowadays people just write custom DSLs embedded in a more general programming language, so for example you can use a logic programming library in Python. With it, one can use logic programming to solve some domain, but still use regular Python code for doing everything else (handling persistence, user interaction, etc) Here's how such library would look like https://github.com/pythological/kanren https://github.com/pythological/kanren - this HN thread discusses it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18698718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18698718 (people implemented this DSLs embedded in many languages, not just Python)
- cglong 5y agoAs someone with no experience in APL or Prolog, I'd love to see a similar article for Prolog too!
- jart 5y agoWhen I read the quote at the top of the article, my eyes read it as having the opposite meaning at first, that this would finally be the language that doesn't change the way I think. Because I've been down that rabbit hole with the most hardest darndest languages there are and I feel more enlightened but I'm still waiting for nirvana.
- rhn_mk1 5y agoWhat kind of tasks? I'm looking for an excuse to learn Prolog, but I don't know enough where it shines.
- carapace 5y agoTriska's "The Power of Prolog" is a great place to start: https://www.metalevel.at/prolog https://www.metalevel.at/prolog