Re: Revenge is a dish best served cold (arrays and 8 queens)

pineapple.link@xxxxxxxxx escreveu:
<<It remains to be seen which problem cannot be solved in Prolog
without
this specific data structure out the cases of interfacing to other
languages or accessing certain API, for example.>>

From what I have seen, there are few problems that absolutely require
particular data structures (hashes, trees, arrays, queues, stacks,
heaps, whatever) in order to be solved. Most (if not all) problems
can be solved with any "basic" data structure, whether an array, list,
or whatever.

So for me, the question is not "whether it remains to be seen which
problems cannot be solved in Prolog without data strucrure X." It is
a matter of having a variety of data structures to choose from in
approaching a problem. Other languages can get by with only a single
data structure as well - a list for example. But they choose to
provide more. Why?

There are several answers to this question, but most of them would bring OT discussions to this NG. That said, we must understand and accept that the myriad of programming languages have proposals and goals and they have some philosophies attached.

Some languages are 'multi paradigm' while Prolog, is focused on being a language to materialize logic programming.


Your car, for that matter, provides many gears in its transmission.
Why? It remains to be seen which car driving problem cannot be solved
by 1 single gear - "first gear." Yet there are usually more provided.

This nice example shows how an analogy can be broken: a car has an engine whose torque rotation curve is not a good match for the load (speeding from zero to comfortable cruise speed) accounting to hills (up and down, etc.) so a solution was devised which matches the regimen of engine for the requirements of the car's trip. It is a necessity for pratical use of car with internal combustion engines (especially reciprocating ones).

This discussion about data structures is more akin on how many doors has to have a commuter car: there are designs with two and others with four. Both are deemed comfortable and appropriate by their owners.

my .019999.... too


Just my 2 cents.

.

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