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Comment by BorisTheBrave | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a recommendation for how to get into ASP? I've read the clingo docs, but it has never clicked.

I read Potassco's Answer Set Solving in Practice book [0] but it's pretty dense. I suspect it would be easier to digest if you read it while also following their course materials, which are all online [1].

These days I recommend people start with the Lifschitz book [2] and read through the Potassco book [0]. Lifschitz's book is a much gentler introduction to ASP and logic programming in general and its examples are in ASP code (not math). It's also more geared towards the programming side than the solving side, which is probably better for most people until they really want to understand what clingo/gringo/clasp are doing and what their limitations are.

There are other more applied courses, like Adam Smith's Applied ASP course at UCSC [3]. The problems in that course look like a lot of fun.

[0] https://potassco.org/book/

[1] https://teaching.potassco.org

[2] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/teaching/378/ASP.pdf, https://www.amazon.com/Answer-Set-Programming-Vladimir-Lifsc...

[3] https://canvas.ucsc.edu/courses/1338

I second the recommendation to start with Lifschitz and move on to the Potassco book from there. To add: One does not need to know Prolog to get into ASP, the semantics are unique and more minimal. That said, I personally struggled with ASP before it clicked, it takes time to grasp the lingo and grok the semantics if you have never worked with something similar. Best to have a guide that introduces the concepts one at a time ("What do you mean, there's more than one type of negation?!")

What problem did you solve with ASP ? I'd like to learn more on them , but I struggle with what problem to start with.

The "Easy ASP" [0] tutorial from Potassco can walk you through some examples, if you'd like.

The playlist is aimed at a general scientific/business audience, the presenter suggests that a lot of natural and business systems can be described in this manner. The presenter also mentions how a Clingo program was used, without modification, to optimize radio frequency band allocation.

Here's a repository [1] of ASP programs in clingo. Under problem classes, I see mostly: game AIs, graph problems, various puzzles, so on.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7DBaibuDD9O4I05DiQfi...

[1] https://asparagus.cs.uni-potsdam.de/

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