13 ms·

Web Prolog and the Programmable Prolog Web [pdf]

125 points by triska 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
e12e 8y ago
Link to readme: https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/REA... And download/raw link to pdf: https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/raw/master/web-client/apps/swish/web-prolog.pdf https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/raw/master/web-...
triska 8y ago
The primary author of this system is Torbjörn Lager, the inventor of Pengines: https://www.gu.se/english/research/publication/?publicationId=205294 https://www.gu.se/english/research/publication/?publicationI... This functionality is the basis of many current web-based Prolog applications. Web Prolog is a natural successor of Pengines. The book also includes a comparison of the two approaches. Portability between implementations is a major goal and attraction of Web Prolog. Here is a quote from the book: An application written in Web Prolog is portable between different node implementations. Indeed, an application written in pure Web Prolog will not only be portable in the normal sense, but we will likely also be able to run it on a node that we do not own nor manage. The language is described as "based on Prolog, with a pinch of Erlang sprinkled in". A tutorial-style introduction to Web Prolog is also included in the repository: https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/web-client/apps/swish/tutorial.html https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/web...
ModernMech 8y ago
I'm not not sure if Prof. Torbjörn Lager of the University of Gothenburg knows this, but in America "Make X Great Again" has very political overtones. To those of us with colored skin, "MAGA" has been yelled with racial overtones. Best to keep this kind of stuff away from programming, maybe?
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  Yes, please do that.
- tomcam 8y ago
  MAGA has nothing to do with race. Ask Larry Elder, Candace Owens, Kanye, Thomas Sowell, or Walter Winchell.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - abiox 8y ago
    to me, the fact that you're earnestly enumerating individuals is itself noteworthy. if things were so simple and so obvious, i feel like the idea of naming people would be absurd, because the examples would be legion.
    - tomcam 8y ago
      It is indeed noteworthy. I respect all of these people hugely and I’m glad you’re willing to lump me in with them
      - abiox 8y ago
        this seems nonsequitur.
- frostburg 8y ago
  It's very likely to be a joke about the Trump campaign. The chance of it being in unironic support of the original use of the slogan is very small.
  - grewil2 8y ago
    Prof. Torbjörn Lager was my teacher in a few courses back in around 2005, I even had a beer or two with him. He is a very smart and funny guy - I can say with 100% certainty that he means it as a joke.
rs86 8y ago
This will be fun to play with
kamilw 8y ago
Yeah, I used Prolog in academic tasks. I remember that I have many problems with installation and usage in modern Windows. Web idea looks like a great. Self-hosted is very ok, but cloud app like that "Overlaf.com" probably will be the best
- pjmlp 8y ago
  SWI worked always quite well on Windows.
  - insulanus 8y ago
    Oh, do you mean SWI Prolog? http://www.swi-prolog.org/ http://www.swi-prolog.org/
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Yes, I was using it without any major issue in 1997 - 1999.
chriswarbo 8y ago
This is certainly intriguing, although I do wonder what "killer app" this might be used for. The 'ISOBASE' and 'ISOTOPE' profiles seem to be the most useful, for allowing users to submit arbitrarily complex queries to a server, yet this seems to run up against the same social/market pressures as RDF, i.e. it's often more economical to accumulate data into a closed silo with a strictly limited interface. I can imagine a SaaS company using this as an API for paying clients (perhaps even charging for CPU and memory usage), but such use cases aren't exactly an "open Web".
- lager 8y ago
  Hi, and thanks for your comments. I'm Torbjörn - the guy behind the book manuscript and the proof-of-concept implementation. Well, the book manuscript still needs a chapter dealing with possible use cases - I'm thinking of web-based conversational agents (using an actors as dialogue managers, DCG for grammars and and speech recognition and -synthesis built into browsers). Or a game of some kind perhaps - with game AI using Prolog. Also, I like to think of the Prolog Web as a killer app. The idea of "wrapping the regular web in logic" appeals to me. Not as a replacement for the semantic web, but as something running alongside it, making it more easily programmable. And the Prolog Web comes with an architecture, something which is not true of the semantic web AFAIK. Of course, the Prolog Web also lacks a lot of features promised by the semantic web - a logic sufficiently expressive to built ontologies for example. The Prolog Web tries to complement the Semantic Web, not to replace it. You are right that for some applications, only what is offered by the ISOBASE or ISOTOPE profiles will be needed. But something like the IDE in the PoC cannot be be served by those profiles - the ACTOR profile is needed there. Or consider a multiplayer game that requires the server to send periodic snapshots of the world state to the client. This is better handled using push technology, rather than pull, and server push is only offered by an ACTOR node. I agree that a SaaS company might offer an API to a Prolog in the cloud. (I should talk to the people behind SICStus Prolog about that - one of the few commerical Prolog vendors still in existence. :) And no, that's not an "open Web". But what is usually referred to as the open web is only open by default isn't it, until someone choose to "close" it and charge for access. Hopefully, enough people in the Prolog community would choose to keep the Prolog Web open.

125 points by triska 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

e12e 8y ago

Link to readme: https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/REA... And download/raw link to pdf: https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/raw/master/web-client/apps/swish/web-prolog.pdf https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/raw/master/web-...

triska 8y ago

The primary author of this system is Torbjörn Lager, the inventor of Pengines: https://www.gu.se/english/research/publication/?publicationId=205294 https://www.gu.se/english/research/publication/?publicationI... This functionality is the basis of many current web-based Prolog applications. Web Prolog is a natural successor of Pengines. The book also includes a comparison of the two approaches. Portability between implementations is a major goal and attraction of Web Prolog. Here is a quote from the book: An application written in Web Prolog is portable between different node implementations. Indeed, an application written in pure Web Prolog will not only be portable in the normal sense, but we will likely also be able to run it on a node that we do not own nor manage. The language is described as "based on Prolog, with a pinch of Erlang sprinkled in". A tutorial-style introduction to Web Prolog is also included in the repository: https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/web-client/apps/swish/tutorial.html https://github.com/Web-Prolog/swi-web-prolog/blob/master/web...

ModernMech 8y ago

I'm not not sure if Prof. Torbjörn Lager of the University of Gothenburg knows this, but in America "Make X Great Again" has very political overtones. To those of us with colored skin, "MAGA" has been yelled with racial overtones. Best to keep this kind of stuff away from programming, maybe?

anothergoogler 8y ago
Yes, please do that.
tomcam 8y ago
MAGA has nothing to do with race. Ask Larry Elder, Candace Owens, Kanye, Thomas Sowell, or Walter Winchell.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- abiox 8y ago
  to me, the fact that you're earnestly enumerating individuals is itself noteworthy. if things were so simple and so obvious, i feel like the idea of naming people would be absurd, because the examples would be legion.
  - tomcam 8y ago
    It is indeed noteworthy. I respect all of these people hugely and I’m glad you’re willing to lump me in with them
    - abiox 8y ago
      this seems nonsequitur.
frostburg 8y ago
It's very likely to be a joke about the Trump campaign. The chance of it being in unironic support of the original use of the slogan is very small.
- grewil2 8y ago
  Prof. Torbjörn Lager was my teacher in a few courses back in around 2005, I even had a beer or two with him. He is a very smart and funny guy - I can say with 100% certainty that he means it as a joke.

rs86 8y ago

This will be fun to play with

kamilw 8y ago

Yeah, I used Prolog in academic tasks. I remember that I have many problems with installation and usage in modern Windows. Web idea looks like a great. Self-hosted is very ok, but cloud app like that "Overlaf.com" probably will be the best

pjmlp 8y ago
SWI worked always quite well on Windows.
- insulanus 8y ago
  Oh, do you mean SWI Prolog? http://www.swi-prolog.org/ http://www.swi-prolog.org/
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Yes, I was using it without any major issue in 1997 - 1999.

chriswarbo 8y ago

This is certainly intriguing, although I do wonder what "killer app" this might be used for. The 'ISOBASE' and 'ISOTOPE' profiles seem to be the most useful, for allowing users to submit arbitrarily complex queries to a server, yet this seems to run up against the same social/market pressures as RDF, i.e. it's often more economical to accumulate data into a closed silo with a strictly limited interface. I can imagine a SaaS company using this as an API for paying clients (perhaps even charging for CPU and memory usage), but such use cases aren't exactly an "open Web".

lager 8y ago
Hi, and thanks for your comments. I'm Torbjörn - the guy behind the book manuscript and the proof-of-concept implementation. Well, the book manuscript still needs a chapter dealing with possible use cases - I'm thinking of web-based conversational agents (using an actors as dialogue managers, DCG for grammars and and speech recognition and -synthesis built into browsers). Or a game of some kind perhaps - with game AI using Prolog. Also, I like to think of the Prolog Web as a killer app. The idea of "wrapping the regular web in logic" appeals to me. Not as a replacement for the semantic web, but as something running alongside it, making it more easily programmable. And the Prolog Web comes with an architecture, something which is not true of the semantic web AFAIK. Of course, the Prolog Web also lacks a lot of features promised by the semantic web - a logic sufficiently expressive to built ontologies for example. The Prolog Web tries to complement the Semantic Web, not to replace it. You are right that for some applications, only what is offered by the ISOBASE or ISOTOPE profiles will be needed. But something like the IDE in the PoC cannot be be served by those profiles - the ACTOR profile is needed there. Or consider a multiplayer game that requires the server to send periodic snapshots of the world state to the client. This is better handled using push technology, rather than pull, and server push is only offered by an ACTOR node. I agree that a SaaS company might offer an API to a Prolog in the cloud. (I should talk to the people behind SICStus Prolog about that - one of the few commerical Prolog vendors still in existence. :) And no, that's not an "open Web". But what is usually referred to as the open web is only open by default isn't it, until someone choose to "close" it and charge for access. Hopefully, enough people in the Prolog community would choose to keep the Prolog Web open.