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From: alfke@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (J. Peter Alfke)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: How do you like Turbo-Prolog? - (nf)
Message-ID: <1973@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Sun, 8-Mar-87 02:06:47 EST
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.1973
Posted: Sun Mar  8 02:06:47 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Mar-87 02:58:15 EST
References: <426@thumper.UUCP> <7000002@iaoobelix.UUCP>
Reply-To: alfke@cit-vax.UUCP (J. Peter Alfke)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 32

In article <7000002@iaoobelix.UUCP> wagner@iaoobelix.UUCP writes:
>Roughly speaking, TurboProlog is Pascal with Prolog syntax.
>(Sorry, I couldn't resist (:-)) I'd prefer a *real* Prolog.

Look, whenever I mention to anyone that I'm using Turbo-Prolog, I get
snickers and a reply just like yours.  No one ever gives any real evidence
as to WHY Turbo-Prolog is not "real" prolog.
I'm using Turbo for my homework projects in a compiler class; I find it's
environment far far more pleasant than using cprolog on an overloaded VAX.
I'm writing a compiler, and so far my difficulties are about 80% with the
Prolog language itself and 20% with differences between Turbo and standard
Prolog.
The major difference between Turbo and regular prolog:
  *  No user-definable operators
  *  No grammar-rules (but this is just a syntactic transformation)
  *  Type-checking

Most of the abuse Turbo gets is based on the last one.  It puts me in mind
of Fortran or C hackers looking at Pascal and saying "oh, gross, you have
to *declare* variables and *keep track of types*".  The type-checking doesn't
seem to limit the power of the language, and there are good things to be
said for spelling out your data-structures at the beginning of the program.

So please ... can someone who has honestly sat down and USED Turbo-Prolog
tell me precisely why it's not really Prolog at all.  I've been using it
for a while now and it looks just like Prolog to me ...

-- 
I try my hand, I try my hand at sculpture            --Peter Alfke
I take a lump of clay, I make it into something        alfke@csvax.caltech.edu
It stands all by itself, a monument to culture
I stand beside myself and still I'm next to nothing.       ::Savage Republic::