Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
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From: paulward@torolab.vnet.ibm.com (paulward)
Subject: Re: speed of prolog
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Message-ID: <PAULWARD.95Jun5081639@skyhawk.torolab.vnet.ibm.com>
In-Reply-To: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU's message of Sat, 3 Jun 1995 04:58:21 GMT
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 12:16:39 GMT
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References: <3pam2e$9jh@chuangtsu.acns.carleton.edu> <3pptgj$6do@percy.cs.bham.ac.uk>
	<3ps2ck$hge@hitchcock.dfki.uni-sb.de> <9515414.16612@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Organization: IBM Toronto Lab

>>>>> "Fergus" == Fergus Henderson <fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU> writes:
Fergus> As Tom Christiansen wrote in an article in comp.lang.perl
Fergus> (I think the discussion was about perl vs tcl):

>>> Tell you what: go write a 100x100 matrix multiply
>>> integers in both languages and then let's talk
>>> speed, ok?

Fergus> I don't think current implementation technology for Prolog
Fergus> is capable of achieving the efficiency of C for tasks like this.

Disclaimer: I do tend to agree with Fergus Henderson, that prolog has
some inherent speed limitations.

However: unless you are interested in numerical applications (and >70%
of computer users are not) the above argument is bogus.  The vast
majority of computing power today is used by databases.  If you want a
grand challenge, make you logic programming language do databases well
(and please don't tell me that prolog does; it ain't even close!).
-- 
-- Paul (paulward@vnet.ibm.com)   | A barbarian that requires a justification
DB2/PE Development.               | will use the nearest appealing one.  Blame
Shouldn't there be a shorter word | the barbarian, not his justification for
for the concept "monosyllabic".   | his acts.
