🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <gerry.718237883@coral> gerry@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au (Gerry Trinidad) writes:
>In <1605@newsserver.cs.uwindsor.ca> arindam@cs.uwindsor.ca (Arindam Das) writes:
>>Now, In my program i need to do complex traversal of the graph.
>>I being at ease in using Prolog (Quintus Prolog), am using it
>>comfortably and i am finding that i can develop the code pretty
>>quickly.
>
>I think you had just give the reason why you should use Prolog 
>instead of C. It is easier to develop the code.
>
>>However I have to defend the use of Quintus Prolog instead of C.
>
>Aside from the fact it is easier to write in Prolog, the resulting
>code is easier to maintained even by other persons.

This is a special case of the general problem, how to justify use of
programming language X instead of programming language Y.

Things you might appeal to:
  - Ease of expressing the algorithm
       (which reduces program development costs,
        as well as future debugging and modification costs)
  - Efficiency of execution
       (That's right, if you're using backtracking and unification then
        your program will probably run as fast under Prolog as under any
        other language.  We once ported a simple Prolog list processing
        routine into Pascal as a test, and got a factor-of-14 *slowdown*!)
  - Portability
       (Prolog is available for a wide range of architectures and is about
        to have an ISO standard.  Although not as portable as C, Prolog
        is, I would argue, comparable to COBOL and much superior to Pascal
        in portability.)

Argument you might have to refute (my tongue goes in my cheek here):
  "All programs should be written in C for efficiency/portability"
(Translation: "C is the only language I know."  In previous years this
same argument was heard with Fortran, COBOL, or assembly language in
place of C.)
-- 
:- Michael A. Covington     internet mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu 
:- Artificial Intelligence Programs       phone 706 542-0359
:- The University of Georgia                fax 706 542-0349
:- Athens, Georgia 30602 U.S.A.          amateur radio N4TMI