Python class ( Prolog ) ???

[Fernando Pereira]

On 9/6/02 7:06 PM, in article
mailman.1031353570.17391.python-list at python.org, "Terry Hancock"
<hancock at anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
> Can
> anyone fluent in both compare what sort of applications
> you might apply a prolog-python solution to?  Where
> would you draw the line between the two? What would
> using prolog help me with? What's a good problem to
> solve as a learning project?  Any more book or website
> recommendations for a learner?
While a superficial connection between Python and Prolog is possible, I
don't think that's particularly interesting. It's the kind of thing you
would do if you had code in both languages that you wanted to glue together.
I think that you are looking for closer connections. That's not easy, but
there are some interesting examples of logic-programming ideas being married
with other languages for mutual benefit. A good example are the constraint
programming engines of ILOG (www.ilog.com) that mesh with OO languages like
C++ and Java. A more researchy example are hybrid languages like Oz/Mozart
(http://www.mozart-oz.org/) that combine logic, OO and functional features
in an interesting package. Finally, there are several nice embeddings of
logic or constraint programming in Lisp-family languages, starting from the
tutorial examples in SICP (http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/) and including
systems like Screamer (ftp://ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/qobi/ircs-93-03.ps.Z).
There's a lot more along these lines, but these are just those that came to
mind right away. I think that Python would be a good language to host
something along those lines, but of course someone would have to do the
work, and if you want reasonable efficiency as well as power you'll have to
work pretty hard. 

-- F