Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 00:47:56 +0100 From: Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com>, Tani Hosokawa <unknown@riverstyx.net>, Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>, Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>, Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org>, freebsd-chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Yahoo hacked last night Message-ID: <38503FAC.8926658E@nisser.com> References: <38502053.28737F7B@nisser.com> <4.2.0.58.19991209162117.00cc0670@localhost>
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Brett Glass wrote: > > At 04:19 PM 12/9/1999 , David Scheidt wrote: > > >Er, because I no longer use any functional languages. I don't doubt that > >functional languages will be around for a while. They are nice to program > >in, once you get your mind around them. The level of abstraction they > >provide lets one do very powerful things easily. > > Non-deterministic pattern matching and backward chaining languages are even > more powerful (though dangerous in the wrong hands). SNOBOL and Prolog can > both produce results that are surprising -- in a good way if you've > programmed well; in a bad way otherwise. Well, have to disagree a bit. Prolog has depth-first search because of efficiency, but it does mean it can miss solutions thus never finish. Barring Borland's Turbo Prolog most didn't have (past tense since I didn't keep up) typechecking. Backward chaining doesn't ring a bell. SNOBOL is truly ancient <g>. Long since superceded by Icon. Also by the hands of the Griswolds (and others, naturally). But mostly text oriented, as is SNOBOL. I actually copied the lower level Icon string functions for my functional language. They're very powerful. Now what really would be great is an implementation of conceptual structures as described by Sowa in the book with the same name. Since Sowa uses lambda calculus for the agents that was actually the reason I started writing my FL. I "needed" to implement a LC and while I was at it... <g>. I believe there already are some such implementations. I was browsing a Springer-Verlag book some time ago and that described one. Roelof -- Home is where the (@) http://eboa.com/ is. Telekabel home http://nisser.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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