Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bellatrix.uucp!vanroy
From: vanroy@bellatrix.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Comparing Prolog with other languages
Message-ID: <28091@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 19 Feb 89 21:20:08 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: vanroy@bellatrix.uucp ()
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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Does anyone know of any comparisons of algorithms implemented in Prolog
versus in another (possibly procedural) language?  This involves writing the
algorithm in a natural style in Prolog and in the other language, and using 
production compilers to compare the execution speeds.  The results depend
on several factors: (1) the choice of algorithm, (2) the quality of the Prolog
implementation, (3) the quality of the implementation of the other language,
and (4) the suitability of the architecture for Prolog.
  Since traditional "general-purpose" architectures are really not suited
very well for symbolic languages, this comparison will be biased towards
the other language.
  I know of one such comparison done at Argonne in which a theorem prover
was written in Prolog and in C.  The C version consistently outperformed
the Prolog version by an order of magnitude.  Has anyone done any other
comparisons of this sort?
  Thanks for any pointers,

	Peter Van Roy
	vanroy@bellatrix.berkeley.edu