[Haskell-cafe] Learn Prolog...

[jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr]

Hugh Perkins writes: 

...
> I didnt have a real PC, just a ZX Spectrum.  It wasnt real Forth, just
> Spectrum Forth.  It was kindof fun, but a little disappointing not to
> be able to do anything useful with it. 
... 

Oh, Forth on Sinclair was as decent Forth as any Forth. Indirect threaded
language, with "paging" of programs, and most of the system writen in
Forth itself. Nothing to be ashamed of. The Z80 processor was less adapted
to this sort of interpreters, machines based on Motorola 6809 more; the
Forth "inner interpreter" was there slightly more than 1 instruction...
It was an excellent processor, much better that 6502. God knows why the
other one made such career. 

In general, the languages on Spectrum, then on Apple, etc., belong to
the *proud* history of comp. sci., we've got Lisp, and Prolog (the micro-
... stuff), APL, and some very exquisite Basic's. Of course, also Pascal
and C. And even a computer algebra program/language (mu-simp). So, don't
say that you hadn't a "real" PC. It is like saying:
"I don't have a real car, only a bicycle". A bicycle is a usable device,
sometimes much faster than a car. We won't rekindle the 8-bit machines,
but I do not regret passing some time on them. For teaching they were much
more useful than mainframes. 

But I am afraid that we got very far not only from Haskell, but also from
café. 

Jerzy Karczmarczuk