🚀 go-pugleaf

Erik P. DeBenedictis <erikd@netalive.com> wrote:

>I believe there are better comparisons than C/C++ and Java. There is precedent
>for applying marketing to computer languges, however. Prolog (or the Japanese
>5th generation computing initiative) and PL/1 got very expensive marketing campaigns
>as well. These were all bombs.

>Is it possible that Java will become the Prolog or PL/1 of the 90's?

I don't have any first hand experience with PL/1 but your
characterization of Prolog is neither fair nor accurate.
Prolog was developed primarily within the academic community,
and is still widely used (with good reason) for AI 
programming in Europe and Japan. My impression is that it
is also gaining popularity for NLP work in the U.S.
Different languáges are appropriate for different purposes -
IMO, Prolog and C++ shouldn't even be seen as competitors since
the basic facilities that they provide are so completely
orthogonal.  If your application calls for the use of
unification, theorem proving using backward chaining,
dynamic backtracking search, or focuses primarily
on constraint relationships in your domain that are most
naturally represented using declarative (rather than
procedural) formalisms, then you would be foolish not
to look at including an off the shelf Prolog engine
in your code.

Parallelization of Prolog is also an active research
area.

- Josh



--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jstern
jstern@primenet.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------