🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <316E744C.5D2B@netalive.com>,
Erik P. DeBenedictis <erikd@netalive.com> wrote:
>
>Good question, and it does have an answer. In the USA, Prolog was an acedemic
>language that never attracted a wide following.
>
>Japan, however, based its "fifth generation computing initiative" on Prolog.
>The idea (in both Japan and the USA) was that Japan's equivalent of DARPA
>would -- in one fell swoop involving several billion dollars
>of research funding -- take away the lead the USA has in software and
>bring it to Japan.
>
>This happened 10-15 years ago.
>
>It was a really big deal in the USA at that time. While I don't recall exactly,
>I believe the issue got the cover of Time-type magazines a half-dozen times
>as well as generating several hundred less-prominent articles in the popular
>press.
>
>I believe my comparison between Prolog and Java is worth considering, although
>I will admit there are differences. Japan is not the USA, and Silicon Valley
>(home of Netscape and Sun) is administred very differently than DARPA or MITI.
>
>Erik DeBenedictis

Not to mention, the Fifth generation computing initiative was, from the start,
a very bureaucratized, top-down setup. I would say a better analogy would
be with some defense department boondoggle.

Donald Cantrell