Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!goanna!ok
From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: Standard ---> IBM PROLOG translation
Message-ID: <3895@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 3 Oct 90 08:14:41 GMT
References: <2574@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil> <3850@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> <34488@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 20

In article <34488@cup.portal.com>, pgl@cup.portal.com (Peter G Ludemann) writes:
> Besides, it's a little difficult know what exactly "Edinburgh"
> syntax is, what with Quintus, Arity, ALS, C-Prolog et al, not to mention ISO.

Edinburgh syntax is the syntax that comes from Edinburgh.
All you have to do is pick up the public-domain TOKEN.PL and the
p[ublic-domain READ.PL and you have what is by definition Edinburgh
syntax.  Quintus Prolog and SICStus Prolog are both derived from that
definition (which was extracted from DEC-10 Prolog), and C Prolog is
as compatible with it as a locally deterministic parser can be.
With the exception of failure to support bases other than 10 and
the very strange ~ syntax for character constants, ALS Prolog syntax
is virtually identical to C Prolog.

As near as I can make out, ISO Prolog is different for the sake of
being different.  The current draft still betrays a heavy C influence.
I still have daydreams that one day the ISO committee will decide to
*standardise* Prolog instead of *reinventing* it.
-- 
Fixed in the next release.