From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,FREEMAIL_FROM, INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,24ac4e1c8cbfe3c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Vladimir Olensky" Subject: Re: histrionics Date: 1999/09/11 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 523521838 References: <37D670CE.855F96BD@interact.net.au> <37D678E4.9867000B@interact.net.au> <37d74de9@eeyore.callnetuk.com> <7r8c60$b2q$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7r9rkj$g75$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Date: 1999-09-11T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote in message <7r9rkj$g75$1@nnrp1.deja.com>... >In article , > "Vladimir Olensky" wrote: >> >> Prolog is best suited for writing expert systems. > >Well this is of course the argument that the Japanese were >trying to make in the 5GL project, but at the time, most >US experts in expert systems were unconvinced, and considered >LISP a better choice. That opinion has not significantly >changed, although you probably find more expert systems written >in "conventional" languages like C or Ada these days than >before. May be this is because writing complex programs in Prolog requires very high level of abstract thinking to be able to express complex problems using short logic predicates sentences. It is always more easy to describe something in many words than in couple of words:-) Another thing is that it may be difficult for many people to grasp the idea of backtracking and recursion and be able to understand program execution that uses them. Iterative algorithms implemented using conventional languages may have much more lines of code but be much more easy understandable. > But the fact of the matter is >that Prolog just has not lived up to the promises we heard in >Tokyo. I think that one of the problems was that they were too enthusiastic and they underestimated complexity of human thinking. Not everything can be described by logic predicates and algorithmes. Irrational thinking, intuition and wisdom that are part of human nature (some people have only the number one from that list :-) can hardly be expressed using any programming language. There are other ways of doing that. I am sure that after breakthrough in nanomolecular technologies and bio_technologies (probably before 2010 ) we will see a lot of amazing things. Regards.