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From: randyg@iscuva.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: OK, so what Prolog is good?
Message-ID: <473@iscuva.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Mar-87 10:56:08 EST
Article-I.D.: iscuva.473
Posted: Mon Mar  9 10:56:08 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Mar-87 21:44:01 EST
References: <473@thumper.UUCP>
Reply-To: randyg@iscuva.UUCP (Randy Gordon)
Distribution: na
Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, WA
Lines: 37
Keywords: prolog Arity Turbo
Summary: Arity, of course!



In article <473@thumper.UUCP> steve@thumper.UUCP writes:
>Earlier I asked the group what they thought of Turbo Prolog.  Most
>of you don't seem to like it.  I'd like to buy the least expensive
>Prolog that is a Real Prolog for my IBM PC (boy, is that a fuzzy
>set, or what?).  Suggestions would be very useful.
>
>Thanks.
>-- 
>
>		-Steve Miller    ihnp4!bellcore!thumper!steve


I have used both Turbo and Arity Prolog, and frankly, I prefer Arity.

Type checking really isn't a problem. Since true orthogonal polymorphism isn't
present in EITHER implementation, you have to do it anyways. Turbo requires it
at compiletime, whereas you have to use a separate Alint program to detect
type mismatches in Arity. This is handy if you are trying to debug a program 
that may have bugs in areas you DON'T want to fix immediately(Turbo always
stops at each error for confirmation).

The true usefulness of Arity is due to its 1 Gigabyte virtual memory, and
built in b-tree, hashing and linked list predicates. Even if you don't need
the power of a full Edinburgh prolog(which Arity is, and more!), Its probably
the cheapest (and most powerful) royalty free database you can incorporate
into a PC program.

Turbo is good if you are doing small stuff, and don't have any need for meta-
circular programming( which almost always means non AI work ), but if you
have never experienced the freedom and creativity of a true edinburgh prolog,
you are missing one of the great joys in life. Turbo is a dull, difficult 
slogging language by comparison. (Borland's stuff really hums, tho ... its
several times as fast as Arity).


                                      Randy Gordon     "Tao kou tse fun pee"