🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <10073@megaron.arizona.edu> debray@arizona.edu (Saumya K. Debray) writes:
:> From: Brad Miller <miller@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU>
:> I certainly concur that naive reverse only excercises the unifier and
:> procedure call;
:On modern Prolog systems, it doesn't even do this too well, since
:it can be compiled into very compact code with much of the procedure
:calling and unification optimized away.  

I don't know that it's done, but I'd say it's even proper for a compiler to
transform naive reverse into its more efficient cousin.  If it implements the
general unfold/fold technique it's just good optimization.  But that changes
the complexity of the computation and defeats the purpose of the benchmark.
The two goals, optimization and benchmarking, clash.

> I don't understand how using Prolog as a test bed for algorithms has
> something to do with benchmarks.

The graph (map) coloring problem, on the other hand, is a member of the class
of problems for which no deterministic polynomial time algorithm is known; it
seems to _require_ search.  So whatever tricks the compiler/programmer does
would be welcomed as a contribution toward an important problem instead of as
a defeat of the benchmark.

Paul
<broome@brl.mil>