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From: pgl@cup.portal.com (Peter G Ludemann)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: More fun with WG17
Message-ID: <24368@cup.portal.com>
Date: 23 Nov 89 02:35:43 GMT
References: <2609@munnari.oz.au> <696@sce.carleton.ca>
  <2643@munnari.oz.au> <715@sce.carleton.ca> <2780@munnari.oz.au>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
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Richard O'Keefe states:

>                   IBM does sell a Prolog-like language, but do bear in
> mind that it is not compatible with any other Prolog dialect at all (it
> is similar in some respects to old Waterloo Prolog, but not compatible
> with it).  It is clearly not in IBM's immediate interest to encourage the
> development of a standard which their product does not resemble.

Your prejudices are showing, Richard.

1. The `old Waterloo Prolog' is as `old' as Edinburgh Prolog and
   quite possibly better.  It simply was on a less popular machine
   (for AI work) and wasn't pushed as vigourously by its creator.

2. If by `Prolog-like', you mean that IBM-Prolog uses `<-', `&' and '*'
   instead of `:-', `,' and '_', that's one of the finer distinctions
   I've ever run into.  I personally think that the use of `&' is
   much nicer than `,' --- it avoids all the silly stuff about
   blanks being signficant in front of parenthesis (making
   Edinburgh-Prolog unique (I think) in this respect among all
   programming languages).

3. Anyway, the new IBM-Prolog supports multiple syntaxes, one of
   which is Edinburgh syntax.  It also supports Edinburgh predicates.
   And it allows `mixed' programs, partly in IBM syntax and partly
   in Edinburgh syntax.

4. As to what is in IBM's best interest, I am not qualified to speak,
   but there are IBM employees in the standardisation group.

- peter ludemann     --- my opinions are my own responsibility ---