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by tannhaeuser 3337 days ago
I don't know if Prolog should be called esoteric. Prolog is an ISO-standardized language after all, and its syntax has been used for 4+ decades now in most papers on conceptual database system and query language design I've read. Which isn't surprising since Prolog syntax, being based on operator-precedence grammar concepts, is arguably as minimalistic as it gets. There's definitely also a lot of interest lately in Datalog, not just as a decidable logic fragment (which has been used for decades as well), but also as a practical non-SQL database query language and proper Prolog syntax subset.
4 comments
fake-name 3337 days ago
Considering they also mention SQL and Forth, I think this could probably equally be called "things that confuse someone who only knows C".
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andybak 3337 days ago
I think both Forth and SQL are outliers in their strangeness. Most people only have to deal with SQL on a very shallow level and barely regard it as programming at all.

Forth is known by name and reputation but very few people have ever tried to write anything in it - let alone delve into it's strange bootstrapped nature.

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DonHopkins 3337 days ago
FORTH ?KNOW IF HONK ELSE FORTH LEARN THEN
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combatentropy 3337 days ago 

  > Most people only [...] deal with SQL on a very shallow level and
  > barely regard it as programming at all.
Fixed that for you.

And now the sentence states why there are so many problems in the world (of software).

;)

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charlieflowers 3337 days ago
I think the point is, most people being paid to program don't know it, or don't know it very well. (EDIT: Granted, this may be more of a statement about the "mainstream" than it is about prolog).
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kybernetikos 3337 days ago
As far as I can tell, the author didn't call any of these languages esoteric (the word appears once, in reference to the list itself), it's editorial titling, presumably because the actual title of the article sounds horribly click-baity.
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cmontella 3337 days ago
> There's definitely also a lot of interest lately in Datalog

Incidentally, Aurora, mentioned in the article, evolved into Eve, which is inspired heavily by Datalog.

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