Hi G



 GG>    YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN ON THE COMPUTER TOO LONG...



          you've been programming in Prolog, and suddenly you can't

          turn from page 1 to page 2 of the newspaper without

          calling a recursion algorithm.







Background: a while ago, I wrote a Moo (original version of the 4

digit guessing game since named Mastermind) "host" program in

Prolog, that thought up the number and scored the punter's guesses

with Bulls for direct hits and Cows for correct digit but wrong

place. A typical score for an intelligent human is 6 guesses,

sometimes 7, with luck 5 or less. (these scores are from

experience, our 3rd and 4th yr class used to play this game on the

blackboard between lectures (along with 3d noughts and crosses))



Now I'm trying to write a Moo Player, that can match a human's

score of 6 or 7 guesses, in Prolog. This is *not* easy. I think

Prolog (or one of its relatives) is the best language to use for

this problem, but after years of C(++) programming, Prolog has

horrible limitations - for example, the only way it can access

element X of an array is to use a recursive function that calls

itself X-1 times, nabs the element X, then unwinds back up the

recursive loop. The only way it can find the length of an array is

to use recursion. The only way it can count is to use recursion. I

think I'm going nutso, everywhere I look I see inward spinning

spirals...



cheers(cheers(cheers(cheers(cheers(cheers(cheers(cheers





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