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  • s
    like the block/visual code tools out there for other languages, but built from the ground up to use it
  • p
    ohh i think I saw some thing before.. but can't remember
  • s
    this page on Pharo really shows the strengths well: https://pharo.org/features
  • s
    the only potential downside is that it is image-based (like common lisp).
  • s
    i'm not trying to say we should all ditch language xyz and use smalltalk, but that it has some really neat ideas. messing around with it really helped cement in my brain the "everything is an object" model that ruby uses.
  • p
    It's quite long and not so easy to learn I think... And I've never heard about some language you mentioned like Pharo, smalltalk, prolog
  • s
    pharo is a smalltalk, prolog is a super unique language
  • p
    i guess they are for educational / leisure purposes since it's hard to find other users
  • s
    it's built on creating a knowledgebase (database) of facts, and asking prolog to see if it can find solutions that satisfy all your constraints.
  • s
    the closest language in heavy use today to prolog would be sql
  • s
    except that prolog will use a (normally) depth-first search in order to try to exhaust all possible answers that are correct
  • s
    but yeah, prolog itself is somewhat niche these days, there's still some industry software written in it (a good chunk of industrial freezer control software, several systems designed for scheduling, and there's currently a decent amount of interest in it for Natural Language Processing).
  • s
    a lot of programmers accustomed to things like python/ruby/c get very "heebie-jeebied" by the fact that with proglog you aren't fiddiling with anything low level.
  • s
    you aren't telling prolog "how" you want to do things, you're telling it "what" you want to do and letting it handle the details.
  • p
    this sounds like prolog is worthy to learn 😀 Any recommendation on the material?
  • s
    i was lucky enough to take a course with an industry veteran/expert. We really didn't use any commonly avaliable materials, but i can reach out to them and see what they'd suggest and get back to you 😃
  • p
    Wow, that would be too kind of you! thanks in advance whatever the outcome is!
  • s
    no problem!
  • s
    i do know that the prolog they'll reccomend is "swi-prolog"
  • s
    there's a relatively up-to-date version on portableapps if you aren't wanting to do a system-based install on windows.
  • s
    swi-prolog: https://www.swi-prolog.org/ portable version: https://portableapps.com/apps/development/swi-prolog_portable interactive online tutorial (look under "examples"): https://swish.swi-prolog.org/
  • p
    yea i think this is enough to learn with https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=quickstart
  • s
    it's fun, just remember, you're giving the wheel to prolog for a lot of the "heavy lifting" under the hood (unlike rust, c, zig, or even python/ruby/javascript).
  • p
    did you major in math or CS?
  • s
    i minored in CS and have always loved language design.
  • p
    i'll learn it later
  • p
    ty for the resources
  • s
    absolutely!
  • s
    i love pointing people at languages that have oddities that help them think about programming differently (:
  • s
    tbh i see things like dendron in a similar light to prolog in terms of management. Dendron is all about finding (and using) relations between information. Prolog is all about using relations to find answers/complete tasks.
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