NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/lang/prolog/2422

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-22 | 1.7 KB

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Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: Prolog is declarative
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail] (Jacob L. Cybulski)
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 02:36:22 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (news)
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Harris Roth) writes:
|> What is the definition of declarative?
A declarative language provides a descriptive rather than prescriptive
solution to the problem. So for instance if you have to sort an array
of numbers, you'd specify the initial state of the array (any order),
the final state of the array (in order) and the relation between these
two states (the two sets of numbers are to be identical). Depending on
how you are going to set the relationship between the two states you may
imply the use of bubble sort, a quick sort, etc...

|> What other languages are declarative?
E.g. SQL, SNOBOL

|> What term describes languages which are not declarative?
Procedural - e.g. Cobol
Functional - e.g. Lisp


Jacob
--
=============================================================================
Jacob L. Cybulski,  Deputy  Director,  Amdahl  Australian  Intelligent  Tools
Programme,  Dept of  Comp Sci  &  Comp Eng,  La Trobe  University,  Bundoora,
Vic. 3083, Australia. Ph: [phone], Fax: [phone], Telex: AA 33143,
E-Mail: [e-mail].                                     ... G'Day
=============================================================================