>Richard does it all here.  He responds on the merits to the whining 
>statements of the unavailability of documentation -- points us 
>immediately to free books, directs us to materials that would take hours 
>to study, and finally shows not only how to solve Lily's problem, but 
>teaches us "how to fish" by showing how he found out how to do it!
>
>Let the whiners, at least, carefully study Richard's response -- this 
>one deserves careful study and is repeated below because it is so 
>great 

Yes.

This was the quality that distinguished Richards contributions to comp.lang.prolog in the eighties.
Nice to see that an old hero of mine is still admirable.