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Prolog - the language and its implementation compared with Lisp

Authors:

David H D Warren,

Luis M. Pereira,

Fernando PereiraAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the 1977 symposium on Artificial intelligence and programming languages

Pages 109 - 115

https://doi.org/10.1145/800228.806939

Published: 01 August 1977 Publication History

Abstract

Prolog is a simple but powerful programming language founded on symbolic logic. The basic computational mechanism is a pattern matching process (“unification”) operating on general record structures (“terms” of logic). We briefly review the language and compare it especially with pure Lisp. The remainder of the paper discusses techniques for implementing Prolog efficiently; in particular we describe how to compile the patterns involved in the matching process. These techniques are as incorporated in our DECsystem-10 Prolog compiler (written in Prolog). The code it generates is comparable in speed with that produced by existing DEC10 Lisp compilers. We argue that pattern matching is a better method for expressing operations on structured data than conventional selectors and constructors - both for the user and for the implementor.

References

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Battani G and Meloni H {1973} Interpreteur du language de programmation Prolog. Groupe d'Intelligence Artificielle, Marseille-Luminy, 1973

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Bruynooghe M {1976} An interpreter for predicate logic programs: Part 1. Report CW 10, Applied Maths & Programming Division, Katholieke Univ Leuven, Belgium, Oct 1976.

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Colmerauer A {1975} Les grammaires de metamorphase. Groupe d'Intelligence Artificielle, Marseille, Marseille-Luminy, Nov 1975.

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DEC {1974} DECsystem10 System Ref Manual (3rd edition) Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Mass. Aug 1974.

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van Emden M H {1975} Programming with resolution logic. Report CS-75-30, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Canada. Nov 1975.

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McCarthy J et al. {1962} LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual. MIT Press, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. Aug 1962.

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Pereira L M {1977} User's Guide to DECsystem-10 Prolog. Forthcoming publication, Divisao de Informatica, Lab. Nac. de Engenharia Civil, Lisbon. 1977.

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Warren D H D {1977} Implementing Prolog - compiling predicate logic programs. Forthcoming report, Dept of AI, Edinburgh. 1977.

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Prolog - the language and its implementation compared with Lisp

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Prolog - the language and its implementation compared with Lisp
Proceedings of the 1977 symposium on Artificial intelligence and programming languages

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

Proceedings of the 1977 symposium on Artificial intelligence and programming languages

August 1977

185 pages

ISBN:9781450378741

DOI:10.1145/800228

Chairman:
James Low

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 12, Issue 8
Proceedings of the 1977 symposium on Artificial intelligence and programming languages
August 1977
179 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/872734
Issue’s Table of Contents
ACM SIGART Bulletin Just Accepted
Proceedings of the 1977 symposium on Artificial intelligence and programming languages
August 1977
179 pages
ISSN:0163-5719
DOI:10.1145/872736
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1977 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

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Published: 01 August 1977

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607845
Horswill IRowe JSmith G(2018)PostmortemProceedings of the Fourteenth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment10.5555/3505378.3505385(45-51)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3505378.3505385
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