[m-dev.] declarative programming guide

[Mark Brown]

Hi Julien,

On Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 10:28 AM Julien Fischer <jfischer at opturion.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> On Mon, 20 Mar 2023, Mark Brown wrote:
>
> > I've been collecting notes from teaching people at work about
> > declarative programming, and formatting as a guide book (attached).
> > Could this go on the Mercury documentation page somewhere?
>
> Sure. It might be worth us cleaning up the documentation page, at least
> to the extent of distinguishing the official docmentation from tutorials
> and alike. (The official documentation seems to be getting pushed
> further and further down the page.)

Agreed. If we have the canonical reference stuff at the top (Language
Ref, User Guide, Library Ref) then the section beneath that should be
easily spotted, and I think new users would quickly scroll down and
find tutorials.

>
> > It's not a tutorial, at least not one aimed at learning Mercury - it
> > assumes a practical ability to program already - so I'm not sure where
> > it would best fit.
>
> I would group it with the tutorials for now; there's not exactly a
> great multitude of documents there ...

That makes sense, they would all reasonably be considered
non-canonical (apocryphal?).

If the basic tutorials were at the top of the second section, I think
that would achieve what we originally intended with the current
layout.

Cheers,
Mark

>
> > YesLogic has agreed to release the source, so I'll commit the latex to
> > the "book" repository - contributions are welcome. The front page is
> > formatted so as to allow authors to be added, though I'm not sure if
> > anyone is willing and able to take that hint!
> >
> > There's a few philosophical points made about declarative programming
> > which might be contentious, so criticism will be appreciated if anyone
> > has the time to review.
>
> I skimmed through it on the way home the other night, but haven't had
> time to read it in detail yet.
>
> Julien.