since I haven't factored out the constraint propagation into a general module, the core of my code is a lot longer than the Curry version (about 60 additional lines, though I'm sure one could reduce that;-). the only negative point I can find about the Curry example is that it isn't obvious what tricks the FD-constraint solver is using
Curry does not have a constraint solver of its own. It simply delegates all constraints to the FD solver of SICStus Prolog. The all_different constraint subsumes the rules that you describe, depending on the consistency algorithm used. FD solvers implement general but efficient algorithms that are much more complex than a few simple rules. See http://www.sics.se/sicstus/docs/latest/html/sicstus/Combinatorial-Constraint... for the SICStus FD all_different documentation.
(ie., it would be nice to have a concise language for expressing propagation techniques, and then explicitly to apply a strategy to the declarative specification, instead of the implicit, fixed strategy of the built-in solver).
CHR is meant as a highlevel language for expressing propagation. It (currently) does not include a strategy language though. Cheers, Tom -- Tom Schrijvers Department of Computer Science K.U. Leuven Celestijnenlaan 200A B-3001 Heverlee Belgium tel: +32 16 327544 e-mail: tom.schrijvers@cs.kuleuven.be