[mercury-users] Mercury needs a Tutorial

[Peter Schachte]

On Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 10:33:56AM +1100, Lee Naish wrote:
> I think having an example-driven tutorial is not a bad idea, though I
> think its worth having some additional background on this weird
> "declarative" style of programming.  Example code is, I think, more
> important once you understand the basics.

Different people learn differently.  I remember when I first got ahold
of the DEC-10 Prolog reference manual I read it and just didn't
understand it.  "That can't possibly work," I thought.  So I sat down
and typed in an example.  Sure enough, it worked.  Then I understood
it (and have been hooked on logic programming ever since).

Some people just need to *see* it work to accept it.  And until they
do, the "that can't possibly work" feeling just lingers, acting as a
block to understanding.


-- 
Peter Schachte                     In a democratic time culture, everyone's
mailto:schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        time is valueable and no one's time is
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/  any more expendable than another's.
PGP: finger schachte at 128.250.37.3      -- Jeremy Rifkin