From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 9 Aug 93 13:10:07 GMT From: agate!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!uchinews!news@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dave Griffith) Subject: Re: forth/fifth generation languages? Message-ID: <1993Aug9.131007.2324@midway.uchicago.edu> List-Id: In article <1993Aug9.084733.16628@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl> ruiter@ruls41.LeidenUniv.nl (Jan Peter de Ruiter) writes: > In article , fouts@cello.hp.com (Marty > Fouts) writes: > > |> fifth generation: A myth the Japanese spent a *lot* of money on > |> About a decade ago, MITI decided it would spend 10 years and a lot > |> of money applying AI to programming, thus solving the software crisis. > |> The project spent its money and its ten years and just recently closed > |> down with a wimper. It looks a lot like programming languages have > |> gotten about as good as they are going to, probably peaking at C, and > |> that we are currently in a period of regression, including such > |> languages as Ada and C++. > |> > > Unfortunately, you're not telling us what the goal of the 5th generation > languages was. I only know that they failed, but what were they trying > to do? > Hell, most of the time they barely knew what they were trying to do, why should you? The idea, cynically put, was that with sufficiently advanced hardware and some fancy new language constructs, functional and logic programming would be practical for large-scale use. It was thought that these would be necessary for the advanced applications of the 21st century (speech and text recognition were especially targetted application areas). Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be money down a rat-hole as the rest of the world went to OO. The fifth generation project is just about the perfect thing to point to when someone tries to argue for government direction of computer science research. -- Dave Griffith, Information Resources, University of Chicago, Biological Sciences Division dave@delphi.bsd.uchicago.edu "The faults in bad software can be so subtle as to be practically theological" --Bruce Sterling