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Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 10:18:00 -0700
From: student <no-s...@nowhere.net>
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Subject: Re: Business Rules in Prolog
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A.L. wrote:
> On Wed, 30 May 2007 05:17:49 -0700, student <no-s...@nowhere.net>
> wrote: 
>  
 >> [I think] Actor Prolog is essentially a language in which one 
 >>/defines/ Prolog programs -- so that, just as it is possible for a 
 >>Prolog programmer to write Prolog and "see" C, it is possible for an 
 >>Actor Prolog programmer to write Actor Prolog and "see" regular 
Prolog >> -- and the reason I think this is that I have a strong hunch 
that >>Actor Prolog actually does translate Actor Prolog into regular 
Prolog >>and that the definition of Actor Prolog is actually written in 
Actor   >>Prolog,
 >
 >>If that is true --  and I don't have the source code so I don't know 
 >>for sure -- then it seems to me the various other advantages that 
 >>Actor Prolog offers i.t.o. source code management should make it a 
 >>very congenial environment for regular Prolog programmers to work >>with.
 >>
 >>At least that is the point I was hoping to make.
 >>
> 
> I don't see your point. 

  That despite Jan's "It's just confusing. If you give a basic Prolog 
you should not have to talk about the dialect, except maybe for some 
aspects of the environment (how to edit, load and debug a program for 
example)",
I thought there were good and sufficient reasons for supposing that 
regular Prolog programmers might actually find Actor Prolog a very 
congenial environment to work with -- and stated those reasons?

  What part of /that/ sentence do you not understand?

  Or is it that you disagree with the reasons I stated?

  Or is it that you object to the fact that I stated any reasons?


If you want [A.L.] to see your point, make
> yours posts 4 (or better 5) times shorter and concentrate on the
> merit. I don't have neither time nor will to decipher literary essays.
> 

  Sorry, A.L., I have all the sympathy in the world for anyone who is 
trying to  make a living as a computer programmer in these cutthroat 
times, but the principles of good engineering, the scientific method on 
which those principles rest, the rules of logical exposition which 
codify that method, and Robert's Rules of Order yield to no man.

  BTW, what I wrote was not written /to/ you so much as to the general 
readership of this newsgroup, present and future, /because of/ the 
/substance of/ what you wrote (as are these words) -- so don't feel 
obligated to read, let alone respond to, anything I write unless you 
feel likewise compelled to take issue with the /substance of/ something 
I say.

   Take all the ad hominem potshots you like, but you are deluding 
yourself if you believe that difficult issues can be reduced to 
30-or-fewer-word memos hastily scribbled on yellow Post-It pads, using 
only sentences of the form "See Spot run!".

   In fact, I lopped off the whole second half of what I actually wrote 
and now I am sorry I did, because for the very same reasons that I now 
feel safe in saying with a high degree of confidence that it would 
almost certainly have been lost on you, I feel equally sure that 
attentive readers (present and future) would have found it interesting 
and helpful. I will post it another time.

-- billh

"Humility befits the scientist but not the ideas which inhabit him and 
which he is under an obligation to uphold." (Jacques Monod)
