[m-dev.] Partially instantiated data structures

[Charlie McGee]

>>  - In his opinion (which I share) it is unimportant in Mercury,
> relative to other features.
>>
>>   The impression you got doesn't resemble very much what was actually
said ;-)

>  My impression is that Charlie was trying to explain part of your third
point:
>  i.e. the *reason* why we don't consider it a high priority to work on.

Exactly this, or at least my attempts to explain as such. I didn't mean to
speak for anybody else, I just have a tendency to ramble.

>> I don't see that anything impure or unsound has been requested here.

My lack of academic background may be biting me here, but in a general (not
mercury specific) sense, isn't a logic program with that has ungrounded
variables in it's extensional database (left hand side :-) unsound?  I know
I'm probably futzing my semantics here, but I know the MMC pitches a fit if
it can't properly ground all the terms in a data constructor.

>> (And do you really interpret compiler error messages pointing out an
>>   inconsistency in what you've written as some sort of personal slight?
>  I read Charlie's words as being a humorous take on the difference
>  between Prolog and Mercury. Granted, different people can find
>  very different things funny, especially at 3am :-)

It's a personal failing of mine.  It's less that I see the compiler as
antagonistic so much as the chiding of a master teaching a student.  I may
grouse about the way the compiler has to say, but I'm very grateful for the
help it provides.  It's irrational to anthropomorphize the equipment, but
my sense of humor helps me greatly when my attempts to debug my own code
grow tiring. ^_^
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