--- Richard Jelinek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 03:43:59AM -0800, Salvador Fandińo wrote: > > Do you know about my modules Language::Prolog::Yaspi and > > Language::XSB?, they are Perl interfaces to SWI-Prolog and XSB > > respectively. If you are implementing AI::Prolog for fun, > everything > > is ok, but if you plan to use Prolog from Perl seriously I thing > that > > my modules are a better option.
(What follows is not about XSB as I have never used it.) Salvador, I've done quite a bit of research on Prolog alternatives in Perl and I am familiar with Language::Prolog::Yaswi (http://use.perl.org/~Ovid/journal/22708). I came to the conclusion that this module was the best available (that I could find), but there were some problems with it. 1. It doesn't compile with the latest version of SWI-Prolog, I had to drop down to the 5.2 series. 2. Compiling 5.2.X SWI-Prolog with --enable-mt failed entirely on my Mac OS X. 3. The README states very clearly that "very early alpha release and lots of bugs should be expected." There were some other issues, but those were the big ones. Since this project doesn't appear to have been touched for two years and (with all due respect) since you didn't respond to my email inquiries, I concluded that Language::Prolog::Yaswi was a dead project. Don't get me wrong, Salvador, I think you've done some fantastic work with it, but I want to truly be able to take advantage of logic programming in Perl and I can't do that with a distribution I can't recommend to others. I'd love to see more work on the project (tests, docs, interface, compile with latest version, etc.) > I'm sure Ovid is oriented on CPAN. ;-) As for "the better > option"(tm): > It depends. Of course, SWI-Prolog is currently one of the best > choices > for doing Prolog, and a seamless (sic!) integration between this and > Perl > (back and forth) - if it existed - is a very good option. > > However, it certainly does increase complexity of deployment and > maintenance a "final" application. Richard, yes, these are problems. Not everyone would want an external dependency on SWI-Prolog, but if they really wanted or needed logic programming for some project, I could see them using Language::Prolog::Yaswi. My pure Perl version is intended primarily as a proof of concept with the long-term goal being porting the engine to C for performance reasons. Running at 1000 LIPs is atrocious (and we won't even begin to discuss memory requirements of Perl data structures.) This will not be as feature rich as Yaswi, but it would definitely be easier to install and configure. > Why am I babbling here? We currently do evaluate the available > alternatives to enhance the inductive, deductive and abductive > capabilities of our semantic inference engine. Unfortunately none of > the alternatives available is yet suited for commercial-grade (sorry) > deployment. > > So in a Nutshell: I still do not see "the better option" and the race > is IMHO open. Richard, out of curiosity, is the main objection to Yaswi the interface, the external dependencies or something else altogether? Cheers, Ovid ===== If this message is a response to a question on a mailing list, please send follow up questions to the list. Web Programming with Perl -- http://users.easystreet.com/ovid/cgi_course/
