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From: sts@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stanley T Shebs)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: FP and AI
Message-ID: <408@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Aug-83 19:32:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.408
Posted: Thu Aug 11 19:32:18 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Aug-83 17:36:44 EDT
Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
Lines: 23

It is interesting that the subject of FP (an old interest of mine)
has arisen in the AI newsgroup (no this is not an "appropriate
newsgroup" flame).  Having worked with both AI and FP languages,
it seems to me that the two are diametrically opposed to one
another.  The ultimate goal of functional programming language
research is to produce a language that is as clean and free of
side effects as possible; one whose semantic definition fits
on a single side of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper (and not in
microform, smart-aleck!).  On the other hand, the goal of AI
research (at least in the AI language area) is to produce languages
that can effectively work with as tangled and complicated
representations of knowledge as possible.  Languages for semantic
nets, frames, production systems, etc, all have this character.
Formal definitions are at best difficult, and sometimes impossible
(aside: could this be proved for any specific knowledge rep?).
Now between the Japanese 5th generation project (and the US response)
and the various projects to build non-vonNeumann machines using
FP, it looks to me like the seeds of a controversy over the best
way to do programming.  Should we be using FP languages or AI
languages?  We can't have it both ways, right? Or can we?

					stan the leprechaun hacker
					ssc-vax!sts (soon utah-cs)