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Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 01:26:58 -0700
From: student <no-s...@nowhere.net>
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Subject: Re: Business Rules in Prolog
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Duncan Patton wrote:
> On Tue, 29 May 2007 21:44:25 -0700
> student <no-s...@nowhere.net> wrote:
> 
>>    With all due respect, Mr Patton, that is not the issue.
>>
> 
> Ooo, that's data overloading if I ever saw it.. 
> 
> There's several answers to the several questions posed herein,
> and I'll only dis' you to the extent that what I said was in 
> response to
> 
> "	So what? 
> 	
> 	Most programs can be translated into "pure C" since C is used as
> 	target of compilers that compile these languages.  Take Fortran77
> 	under Linux, for example, some version of Eiffel, and many other.
> 	Prolog can be also compiled to C.
> 
> 	A.L.
> "
> 
> <<< which I regarded as a somewhat specious answer because most computer
> programs ''can be translated into "pure C"''... or most any other
> computationally complete language simply because they are computationally
> complete and not because the compilers are written in C. >>>
> 

   <<< my emphasis >>>

   That is easy enough to say in retrospect, but I am not a mind reader 
and it is hard for me to believe that you could have intended to say it 
because it is hard for me to believe anyone could so badly misconstrue 
what A.L. said, namely, that most programs can be translated into "pure 
C" because C is used as the ***target language*** of compilers that 
compile the languages in which most programs are written -- not because 
those compilers are ***written in*** C.

  And "specious" means empty, whereas A.L.'s comment is not only not 
empty, it is correct -- only, as I tried to indicate to you, not the 
issue I was addressing.

  All you said was

<quote>
It is my understanding that all computationally complete languages
are inter-"translatable".
</quote>

which, given what A.L. had in fact said, and assuming you were 
responding to what he had in fact said, I took to mean "all -- not 
merely *some* -- computationally complete languages are 
inter-translatable", i.e., that you were amplifying A.L.'s statement, 
not in any sense disagreeing with it.

> As for the rest of what you say about "Prolog breeding complexity"
> this is a deeper kind of argument I will have to consider in more detail
> before responding further to.
> 
> Dhu
> 
> 

   I look forward to seeing it.

-- billh

   Truth is a tiger with many tails.
