The Joys Of Data-Driven Programming

[Rustom Mody]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 3:48:49 AM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Lawrence D’Oliveiro :
> 
> > On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 2:20:39 AM UTC+12, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> >> ... can heartily recommend SCons.
> >
> > It’s Python 2 only, not Python 3.
> 
> And? SCons is very good, definitely beats make. It also illustrates the
> use of a real programming language for special applications (as opposed
> to ad hoc rules).
> 
> The flawed thinking behind rules is often expressed like this: We want
> rules because not everybody is a programmer.
> 
> However, with rules, not even a programmer knows how to configure the
> thing.

The same thing said from flip side:
Programmers think programming (or is it programmering?) is kewl
Maybe… Maybe not…
All of us, even supposedly educated/intelligent, can suffer from the hammer-nail
effect with our hammer being general purpose programming (languages)

It occurs to me that a general-purpose rule system was created decades ago — prolog
That it did not take off maybe just a question of maturity and not something
intrinsically wrong with the concept

Personal Note: In a major curriculum revision of 1990 I canvassed vigorously
for using lisp instead of C,C++,Pascal etc to teach programming.
I was booed/shooed out.
One could say I was simply delirious
Or that I was some 25 years ahead of the time with Lisp-practicalized being
spelt ‘python’
There are so many things that we dont notice that make for bridging the gap between
being theoretically neat and practically usable:
- good docs
- runs OTB
- Or at least easy to install
- C interface 

That said, I dont like prolog — more imperative than classic imperative programming
And full proper logic ie full first order logic without abominations like
cut and with full quantifier generality is uncomputable

ie this may also be a pipe-dream.