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From: Don_Ferguson@notes.pw.com (Don Ferguson)
Subject: Re: speed of prolog
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References: <3pam2e$9jh@chuangtsu.acns.carleton.edu> <Don_Ferguson.3.004B2F22@notes.pw.com> <9513904.29913@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Date: Sat, 20 May 1995 00:55:04 GMT
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In article <9513904.29913@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) writes:


>Speed is an economic issue.  The choice of language greatly affects the
>economics of producing efficient code.  If efficiency is very important
>to your project, Prolog is not likely to be a good choice.

No, I wouldn't recommend that anyone write a device driver in Prolog.  But
there is a common perception that the language is a slow, interpretted toy, 
unsuitable for use in commercial business applications.  For those of us who
make a living programming in Prolog, it is galling to have the language 
dismissed out-of-hand by people who don't know what they're talking about 
(no, I don't mean you).  Common desktop hardware now has enough memory 
and power to run Prolog applications effectively.  From the standpoint of 
Prolog's acceptability to the world at large, this is incredibly significant. 
I would be happy to see Prolog considered a viable component in commercial 
applications.  But that will not happen under the current cloud of 
misperceptions.

>>Good Prolog compilers generate very fast code. 

>Name two.

For my purposes, Sicstus and Quintus.  Perhaps "very fast" is an 
overstatement, but they are fast enough to deliver commercial applications on 
PC desktops, competing head-to-head with similar applications written in C.  
I am thinking of Quintus CustomerQ, the modifiable client-server customer 
support system, which competes directly with products from Vantive, Scopus, 
Clarify, Remedy, and others.  By coming to market quickly with advanced 
functionality, Quintus gained an early advantage in this market.  In that 
sense, I agree that speed is an economic issue.  What Quintus lost in 
performance by using Prolog was offset by speed of development.

If an application exhibits adequate performance, superior functionality, and 
reliability, should anyone care what it's written in?
