[m-users.] Performance of solutions module

[Peter Wang]

On Tue, 06 Nov 2018 09:10:15 +1100 (AEDT), "Zoltan Somogyi" <zoltan.somogyi at runbox.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, 5 Nov 2018 08:15:15 -0500, Charlie McGee <c4cypher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you for the clarification on this. I am still learning. I'm starting
> > to get a decent grasp of how the language works in a single solution
> > context, but I'm still learning how the compiler handles nondet code.  One
> > of my biggest points of confusion/frustration is how cc_multi and cc_nondet
> > work exactly, the semantics of the comitted choice modes.  Do they work in
> > terms of a greedy 'first result is good enough if called in a single
> > solution context'?  I need to work on my understanding on how det code
> > works with nondet code.
> 
> There are two kinds of semantics that are relevant here. One is the
> declarative semantics: what a piece of code is supposed to mean.
> The other is the operational semantics: what the compiled version
> of that code actually does. Mercury is a declarative language
> because in almost all cases, the compiler is required to ensure
> that the operational semantics matches the declarative semantics.
> 
> Committed choice code is one of the main exceptions.

I've taken the liberty of copying this explanation to the wiki.

Peter