Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!pipex!uunet!world!amzi
From: amzi@world.std.com (Amzi!)
Subject: Re: Why hasn't Prolog Taken over the World?
Message-ID: <D01Jzv.I27@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <3a6lf4$mk5@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <ROLAND.94Nov14142443@zith.sics.se> <9433315.28601@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 18:14:18 GMT
Lines: 45

conway@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Thomas Charles CONWAY) writes:

>roland@sics.se (Roland Karlsson) writes:

>>> Why hasn't Prolog Taken over the World?
>>
>	[deletia]
>>5. Lack of control over memory allocation.  This is a serious one!

>I couldn't let this one pass! If Prolog implementations lack good
>garbage collectors, then complain to the implementors. Automatic
>memory management is one of the biggest strengths of the logic
>and functional programming paradigms. A good proportion of the
>bugs in C programs (particularly C programs) are memory management
>related. In a logic or functional language, the implementor needs
>to get it right only once, and then it works for everyone.

I don't believe the original reference was about the quality of garbage 
collectors, nor bugs in memory management.  The issue with many Prolog 
systems is that they want to control the memory and then allocate pieces 
to you (a C/C++ program).  What I think C/C++ programmers want is to 
start up a Prolog engine and tell it exactly how much memory to use for 
heaps, stacks, code, etc.  Then when the C/C++ program shuts down the 
Prolog engine, they want it to clean everything up, releasing all the 
memory it used.

Anyways our Cogent Prolog does this because we agree with the original 
author that Prolog needs to be a well-behaved component of an 
application, not an all-encompassing system.

Mary Kroening


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