[Aerroon]

Logical programming (prolog).

I'm not sure I would call it the most challenging class, but it's the one where the most amount of people failed to learn anything. If I had to guess then 90% of the students (or more) ended up not being able to do anything with prolog.

I haven't seen any other class that had such an abysmally low rate of successful learning. I think the only knowledge most people took away from this class is to not use prolog.

[thekemkid]

In my final semester of uni, we did an "AI" module, which involved using prolog. I didn't really grok it until the night before the final exam. Felt like I had a bit of a beautiful mind moment with all the possibilities opening up to me when it clicked.

This was my only 100% final exam module with no continuous assessment/midterm papers or exams/projects to pick up slack if I failed, so I was nervous going into it. Kinda felt like my whole degree weighed on it. That night before, I just *got it* and it made all the difference in the world. I got how powerful it is, and why to use it.

I haven't used prolog since.

[AStrangeMorrow]

Back in University the prolog class required us to pick a game and write a small "AI" opponent for this game in prolog.

Either people loved the whole different paradigm of logical programming and were really invested or they just didn't want to touch it. There wasn't much in-between.

I think it is great to expose people to different things and I loved it, but I agree for many people that sent prolog straight to their blacklist

[from-nibly]

Its one of those things thats very hard incrementally. I remember one of my assignments getting absolutely nowhere and then one day during my morning routine i suddenly knew the whole assignment and wrote it out in like a single minute.

[gwbas1c]

> I want to improve my skills further

> Logical programming (prolog) ... but it's the one where the most amount of people failed to learn anything

I think the implication is that hnthrow098767 would like useful experience at the end of the course.

That being said: 25 years after my prolog course, and 21 years into my career, I wonder if I would take something away from it now.

[haspok]

I second this. One could say that advanced type-level programming is harder to understand, for sure, but in Prolog you can be lost at the very first step, feeling completely stupid for not being able to express the simplest thing (while already being very comfortable with C-style languages).