[m-users.] higher order issue: `ground` seen but expecting higher-order pred

[Sean Charles (emacstheviking)]

For the record, thanks to Julien F-s initial suggestion and Volkers eagle-eye spot of my subsequent error, I now have a fully working runtime REPL with the 'dictionary lookup' to trigger the word handler as I wanted. The rest of the day for me (still on sick leave) is to be reading some really old FORTH books I found by Leo Brodie, to get a better appreciation of the internals and behaviours of 'interpret' mode and 'compile' mode although my version is never intended to --be-- a FORTH system per se, more, it is a stack based engine using a similar syntax, with the end goal of driving SDL2 with a bunch of pre-written primitives.

Thanks again you guys!

Sean.


> On 6 Oct 2022, at 07:14, Volker Wysk <post at volker-wysk.de> wrote:
> 
> Am Donnerstag, dem 06.10.2022 um 07:20 +1100 schrieb Mark Brown:
>> On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 3:50 AM Volker Wysk <post at volker-wysk.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Am Mittwoch, dem 05.10.2022 um 17:13 +0100 schrieb Sean Charles
>>> (emacstheviking):
>>>> I must be to stupid to get it, unusually, I am pasting the entire source
>>>> file as it stands along with the error message, I just don't get it. I
>>>> just don't today, apologies for the long post of source code. I've tried
>>>> re-reading the relevant parts of the documentation but it's just not
>>>> sinking in, the language is too technically dry and formal for my
>>>> uneducated brain.
>> 
>> Did you read the error message? It wasn't the same error as last time
>> (granted, some programmers find error messages too dry).
>> 
>>> 
>>> I agree that the Language Reference Manual is hard reading. Especially the
>>> parts which aren't covered by Ralph Becket's Mercury tutorial (yet). For
>>> instance, I had to turn to Haskell tutorials for what existential types are
>>> about.
>> 
>> Ralph's tutorial has a section on univs, which are existentially
>> typed. However, the connection may not be completely clear as Ralph
>> has evidently avoided language that is too formal.
> 
> ... and existential types aren't covered.
> 
>> 
>> It's not really possible to write a manual or tutorial that will
>> satisfy every programmer, of course.
> 
> 
> The Reference Manual is fine as a reference. But it isn't a tutorial. And
> many of the topics it covers are difficult to grasp without previous
> knowledge...
> 
> Bye
> V.W.

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