The purpose of this manual is to provide a complete description of the Quintus Prolog system. It is not necessary to read the entire manual before starting to use Quintus Prolog. On the contrary, it is organized so that you should be able to quickly find out whatever you need to know about the system.
Start by reading Chapter 1. int-hig provides an overview of all the new functionality and includes references to places where this new functionality is documented. int-dir provides an overview of the installation hierarchy, which will be helpful in orienting you at many points in the manual.
Familiarity with some form of Prolog programming is assumed, at least at the level of textbooks such as those listed at the end of this chapter. It is the particular syntax, semantics and functionality of Quintus Prolog that is treated here. The material in the first 10 chapters is meant to introduce you to Quintus Prolog, not Prolog in general.
The entire manual is accessible on-line as discussed in ref-olh, and, for Quintus User Interface users, qui-hlp. This facility allows you to access the manual directly from Prolog whenever you need to look something up.
The manual, printed and on-line, is supplemented by various on-line resources including tutorials, demos, and code comments in library packages. See int-dir for the location of these materials in the Quintus Directory.