Amzi! inc--Tools for Learning Prolog
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There are two products for learning Prolog, APT--The Active Prolog Tutor and 
_Adventure in Prolog_.  Both cover the same material and have the same 
philosophic approach.  APT is an interactive tutorial with an embedded Prolog 
interpreter.  _Adventure in Prolog_ is a book.

Both teach Prolog as a second language, that is, they assume the student has 
some familiarity with programming but none with Prolog or AI.  The approach 
taken is more practical than theoretical, and through the course of the 
material and exercises the student will develop four prototype applications.  
Both tutorials teach standard, Edinburgh Prolog and are compatible with almost 
all available Prolog language systems.

The main teaching application is an adventure game, chosen because it is an 
excellent showcase for many of the features of Prolog and also makes the 
learning process a bit more enjoyable.  The student exercises lead to 
development of three other applications, being:

        - An intelligent genealogical database,
        - A business application (customer order entry), and
        - An identification expert system.

The teaching philosophy is based on the idea that in order to be a successful 
Prolog programmer one must understand exactly the mechanics of unification and 
backtracking.  For this reason, the execution behavior of Prolog is carefully 
explained at each step of the way through detailed traces and diagrams.

One user said, "I was greatly struck by your book because it was only after 
examining your diagrams for cut/0 that I felt I had some understanding of its 
operation after all."  Another commented, "...what I lacked was a visual 
paradigm; you, of course, provided that..."

Because learning is often based on building on the familiar, both APT and 
Adventure in Prolog spend time showing how to implement conventional control 
structures in Prolog, so it starts not only with simple logical proofs but 
predicates to display reports of the results of the proofs as well.

The chapters of both are:

     Getting Started
     Facts
     Simple Queries
     Compound Queries
     Rules
     Arithmetic
     Managing Data
     Recursion
     Data Structures
     Unification
     Lists
     Operators
     Cut (The dark side of the force)
     Control Structures
     Natural Language
     Appendix (Sample code for the four applications)


APT--The Active Prolog Tutor
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APT has a number of unique features that make it an excellent vehicle for 
learning Prolog.

Built-In Interpreter
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Within APT is a full Edinburgh-standard Prolog interpreter.  (It is, however, 
not a general-purpose interpreter because it can only be accessed through 
APT.)  The interpreter is driven by both the tutorial and the student.  The 
tutorial dynamically drives it to demonstrate the development and use of 
Prolog code.  The student toggles to the interpreter at any time to try out 
the code developed by the tutorial, to add additional code, to do the 
exercises, or to experiment in general.  All of the student's work is saved 
from session to session.

Multiple Traces
---------------
APT contains three different Prolog trace mechanisms, all designed to 
illuminate the workings of Prolog.  In contrast to normal Prolog traces, 
designed for debugging, the APT traces provide more detailed information about 
variable bindings and backtracking.  Two of the traces use multiple windows on 
the screen at the same time to show various aspects of the running predicate 
in action.

"The information in the tutorial is well organized and clearly presented.  
Users...will likely appreciate the concise nature of the text and the ability 
to toggle to the interpreter to try new techniques immediately.  The heavy 
reliance on examples also makes concepts easily comprehensible.  APT's 
approach to teaching Prolog is a good one."--Bonny Hinners, AI Expert System 
Requirements

Computer Lab Use
----------------
APT is available in a computer lab configuration that allows multiple students 
to share a copy of APT on computer lab PCs.

"We found APT to be an excellent vehicle for an intense 5-day course in Prolog 
for a diverse group of professionals."--Dr. Warren Briggs, Chairman Computer 
Information Systems at Suffolk University


Adventure in Prolog
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It is recommended that the student have access to a Prolog interpreter for 
working the exercises, although, as Larry O'Brien of Computer Language points 
out, Prolog is one of the few languages you can program with just pencil and 
paper.  Any Edinburgh-standard interpreter will do, such as the Cogent Prolog 
Interpreter.

By Dennis Merritt, published by Springer-Verlag.  
ISBN 0-387-97315-X, ISBN 3-540-97315-X.