[Haskell-cafe] let and fixed point operator

[Andrew Coppin]

jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr wrote:
> Anyway, I believe strongly that ALL people who have problems with the
> Haskell protocole, and they are numerous, I teach a good sample of them,
> should be encouraged to learn Prolog. IN DEPTH, and I mean it, Andrew
> Coppin and Peter Hercek !
> In Prolog A=B is the unification, which is a bit more than equality, and
> something much more aggressive than an assignment. When you REALLY
> understand unification, it will be easier to see the lazy instantiation
> of the Haskell assignment, and, additionally, it becomes much more easy
> to understand the automatic inference of types, which sooner or later
> must be harnessed by all Haskell programmers...

I did once try to learn Prolog. And failed. Miserably.

I just couldn't bend my head around how the Prolog interpreter manages 
to make seemingly "impossible" leaps of deduction. (It's a *machine*! 
How can it deduce arbitrarily complex conclusions from any arbitrary set 
of axioms? That requires *intelligence*!) And yet, in other, seemingly 
identical cases, it utterly fails to deduce patently *obvious* 
results... really weird!

And then I read a book. A golden book. (No, seriously. The cover is 
gold-coloured.) It was called "The Fun of Programming". And it 
demonstrates how to write a Haskell program that performs exactly the 
same "impossible" feats. And now, finally, it makes sense.

(I still have no idea what the hell all that business with the "cut" 
operator is though...)