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From: Don_Ferguson@notes.pw.com (Don Ferguson)
Subject: Re: speed of prolog
Message-ID: <Don_Ferguson.10.007E5118@notes.pw.com>
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Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 19:06:31 GMT
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fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) writes:

> Prolog vendors don't care about performance because their customers don't 
> care about it.  Customers for whom efficiency is important don't choose 
> Prolog.  It's a vicious cycle.

Bullshit.  Prolog vendors care very much about performance and efficient 
memory utilization.  However, by now they realize that speed is not the reason 
why people don't choose Prolog.  Decisions are made by human beings, who 
are ruled by fear and prejudice as much as by logic.  C programmers feeling 
threatened by competitive technologies tend to reject them.  Managers who 
would be fired for making risky and unpopular choices choose the safest
path.  Herd mentality rules, and as Yannis Cosmadopoulos points out, there 
are real benefits derived from the economies of scale.

For Prolog to be adopted more widely, common perceptions would have to 
change.  An optimistic scenario follows:

1) Prolog is positioned as an ideal embeddable component to add "rules" to 
   object oriented systems.  As an add-on technology with limited ambitions, 
   it can be accepted by the C++ community.

2) Somebody builds something significant in Prolog, or some other logic 
   programming language.

3) The popular press, bored with object oriented programming and looking for 
   something different to hype, decides on logic programming, which was
   mostly overlooked in the 1980's AI-hypefest (at least in the US).

4) Managers, venture capitalists, programmers, etc. become comfortable enough
   with the idea of using Prolog, that it is no longer considered wierd and 
   risky.  Over time, it may even become "main stream". 


It's pretty unlikely, but not impossible.  The computing eco-system continues 
to change, as application functionality continues spiraling upwards, and 
memory prices continue spiraling down.  Languages that were perfectly suited 
to the old environment may be at a disadvantage in the new one.

Don Ferguson 
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