Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!munnari.oz.au!cs.mu.OZ.AU!munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU!lee
From: lee@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Lee Naish)
Subject: Re: Prolog standardization -- What now?
Message-ID: <9430711.8652@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Sender: news@cs.mu.OZ.AU
Organization: Department of Computer Sci, University of Melbourne
References: <3961lo$kdu@lightning.ditc.npl.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 00:57:51 GMT
Lines: 35


My 5c worth (1 & 2 cent pieces have been withdrawn here):

I think its worth continuing with the standardization effort.

Its goig to be hard to get people to agree on a module system.  Perhaps
something simple that could be implemented on to of (some) existing
module systems would be easiest to get through in a semi-timely fashion.
Its a shame the standardization process has been so slow. At the start
there were not many module systems around and the process would have
been easier.

Its worth doing grammar rules.  I can't see why it should take very
long.

Its worth doing foreign interfaces, though that may be more tricky.

I would forget about standardizing constraints at this stage.

Other things...

I'm not that familiar with what is covered at the moment, but here are
some ideas:

Higher order predicates (map, filter, foldr,...) (and call/N if its not
done already).  Prolog really should have these but most systems don't,
so its a good time to standardize them.

An extensibe way to do declarations (I'm not sure whats in the current
draft standard, but declarations on predicates are becomming more
important in lots of systems and it would be nice for these to be done
in a way that doesn't prevent porability).

	lee

