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Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

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Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#31

Post by barnacled »

I used prolog in anger when I first started at a startup some years ago (why that was is another story) and while I found it interesting, it was really quite an ineffective experience for me.

Firstly, by being so declarative if was very easy to end up with O(a^n) algorithms by mistake and secondly I found, at least in what I was doing, that for example the ordering of declarations would change program behaviour which made it imperative in a very non-ovvoous way.

I also found it hard to debug and diagnose the code or find decent resources online for it.

Perhaps I didn't do a good job with it or was missing details on exactly how best to use it but I found it was almost too declarative to the point of the rubber never hitting the road in a controllable way.

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#32

Post by PortlandMEnerd »

Only a handful of people can earn a living becoming academics and we're in a time where many people are being "pushed" into credentialing up. Forcing people who are going back to school to further their professional careers to learn a language that isn't marketable makes the degree they're trying earn worth less.

Please think harder about why you're offering this class and consider offering something else instead that will provide more value to the adults trying to compete in this flat world.

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#34

Post by Rochus »

st1x7 wrote: post #14

How do you guys think about the opportunity cost of learning dead/dying/new/unpopular languages? Even with newer languages that are gaining popularity and are likely to be used in the future, I struggle to justify the time investment. I could be wrong but some of my concerns are: - my time is better spent getting deeper into some more popular language that I already know to some extent - unused skills deteriorate wit…

I spent much more time learning Latin than Lisp and Prolog together. But at least Lisp was somehow useful, if I look at it from today's perspective.

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#35

Post by Twisol »

PortlandMEnerd wrote: post #32

Only a handful of people can earn a living becoming academics and we're in a time where many people are being "pushed" into credentialing up. Forcing people who are going back to school to further their professional careers to learn a language that isn't marketable makes the degree they're trying earn worth less. Please think harder about why you're offering this class and consider offering something else instead tha…

I've profitably used the domain modeling and program design lessons I've learned from Prolog multiple times, please and thank you. You don't need to use a language in production for it to be a valuable addition to your toolkit.

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#36

Post by the_only_law »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #20
st1x7 wrote: post #14

How do you guys think about the opportunity cost of learning dead/dying/new/unpopular languages? Even with newer languages that are gaining popularity and are likely to be used in the future, I struggle to justify the time investment. I could be wrong but some of my concerns are: - my time is better spent getting deeper into some more popular language that I already know to some extent - unused skills deteriorate wit…

I'm curious about this as well, though in a more general sense than just PLs. There are already so many modern/useful things I want to learn that it's hard to justify learning something because it's 'beautiful' or purely intellectually stimulating.

Personally, I probably would have quit entirely had I limited myself to only learning “practical” things.

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

PortlandMEnerd wrote: post #32

Only a handful of people can earn a living becoming academics and we're in a time where many people are being "pushed" into credentialing up. Forcing people who are going back to school to further their professional careers to learn a language that isn't marketable makes the degree they're trying earn worth less. Please think harder about why you're offering this class and consider offering something else instead tha…

[deleted]

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#38

Post by lliamander »

st1x7 wrote: post #14

How do you guys think about the opportunity cost of learning dead/dying/new/unpopular languages? Even with newer languages that are gaining popularity and are likely to be used in the future, I struggle to justify the time investment. I could be wrong but some of my concerns are: - my time is better spent getting deeper into some more popular language that I already know to some extent - unused skills deteriorate wit…

My rough criteria:

- does the language have some name recognition and positive reputation?

- is it still in use (even if only in very niche areas)?

- do you have a chance to use it to solve a problem (for work or for fun) to which the language is well suited?

If the answer to all three is yes then I would have no hesitation.

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#39

Post by hawk_ »

jeofken wrote: post #24

Learning Prolog is a lot of fun! It will not take more than an a day or two - it’s simpler than python. Download SWI prolog, and get an editor that allows interactive programming with it. Emacs is of course the best for any obscure hacker language, but there may be plug-ins for other editors. Predicates are like functions but instead of returning you simply leave some parameter as a variable, and the “return value” i…

Which makes me wonder is there a statically typed prolog like language out there?

Re: Why Learn Prolog in 2021?

#40

Post by themanaknight »

hawk_ wrote: post #39
jeofken wrote: post #24

Learning Prolog is a lot of fun! It will not take more than an a day or two - it’s simpler than python. Download SWI prolog, and get an editor that allows interactive programming with it. Emacs is of course the best for any obscure hacker language, but there may be plug-ins for other editors. Predicates are like functions but instead of returning you simply leave some parameter as a variable, and the “return value” i…

Which makes me wonder is there a statically typed prolog like language out there?

Check out Mercury

https://mercurylang.org/index.html

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