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" they said that for those who use Prolog in production it is a real competitive advantage that they don't want to announce to the world;" with due respect to

" they said that for those who use Prolog in production it is a real competitive advantage that they don't want to announce to the world;" with due respect to prolog (which is a mindbending language), the proponents of every niche language say the same thing. "it is so powerful that users don't talk about it and that is why you don't hear about it" I've heard many variants of this with respect to Forth, for example. The reality is that devs can't stop talking about the languages, tools, and frameworks they use. The simpler explanation is that next to no one actually uses prolog in productions, because it is, well, a niche language (which doesn't take away from its coolness) Color me skeptical about "secret weapons".

yaantc 8y ago
Few people use it overall, yes. That doesn't mean it's not a differentiator in some areas. You can often find a Prolog system behind complex scheduling and resource planning systems for example. It's no longer pure Prolog nowadays, you also have constraint logic programming and other solvers hooked in (see my other comment on ECLiPSe CLP, http://eclipseclp.org/ http://eclipseclp.org/) but Prolog is still often the host language. The ECLiPSe web page has for example a reference on Opel, the car maker, optimizing its supply chain with it. Sicstus (https://sicstus.sics.se/ https://sicstus.sics.se/) is also present in this space. In a very different domain, IBM publicly commented on how they use Prolog in their Watson system, the one who won Jeopardy (the name was over-used afterward): https://www.cs.nmsu.edu/ALP/2011/03/natural-language-processing-with-prolog-in-the-ibm-watson-system/ https://www.cs.nmsu.edu/ALP/2011/03/natural-language-process...
jasim 8y ago
Forth! "Going Forth to Erlang" by Manoj Govindan is a great talk on the language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsZ1Ka2HPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsZ1Ka2HPQ
haolez 8y ago
Paul Graham himself considered Lisp his secret weapon, and it was very successful at that.
- iLemming 8y ago
  Lisp ain't no "secret weapon" anymore. Clojure has restored historical awesomeness of Lisp. It's been rated as the most paid PL in most popular dev surveys of the past two-three years. Companies like Apple, Cisco, Amazon (even NASA) are using Clojure today in production.
  - haolez 8y ago
    My statement was in the past. Look up for Paul's essays on this. It happened in the nineties, if I'm not mistaken.
segmondy 8y ago
I use Prolog in production. :-) I know many people that do too and don't talk about it unless you move in the Prolog world. Here's a stock broker using it https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/CHR/files/Elston_SecuritEase.pdf https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/CHR/files/Elston_SecuritEase.pdf Java Virtual Machine specifiction is verified using prolog ", implemented the Prolog verifier that formed the basis for the specification in both Java ME and Java SE." https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-0-preface7.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-0-pr... Prolog code -> https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-4.html#jvms-4.10 https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-4.ht... https://kylecordes.com/2010/the-prolog-story https://kylecordes.com/2010/the-prolog-story IBM Watson was written in C++ and Prolog
- jasim 8y ago
  Thanks a ton! I was hoping to hear more about people like you when I wrote that comment.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  how lively is the prolog market ? do they accept semi noobs ? (read more than half of Bratko book)
kazinator 8y ago
"COBOL has historically been very secretive and low key. Its domain of use being very secretive and low key. COBOL programmers rarely work on systems that would allow for open internet chat regarding details, let alone existence. It is a tribute to the professionalism of these programmers that most people rarely, if ever, hear the name COBOL, a programming language with billions of lines of source code compiled and in production around the world over half a century." -- GnuCOBOL FAQ

yaantc 8y ago

Few people use it overall, yes. That doesn't mean it's not a differentiator in some areas. You can often find a Prolog system behind complex scheduling and resource planning systems for example. It's no longer pure Prolog nowadays, you also have constraint logic programming and other solvers hooked in (see my other comment on ECLiPSe CLP, http://eclipseclp.org/ http://eclipseclp.org/) but Prolog is still often the host language. The ECLiPSe web page has for example a reference on Opel, the car maker, optimizing its supply chain with it. Sicstus (https://sicstus.sics.se/ https://sicstus.sics.se/) is also present in this space. In a very different domain, IBM publicly commented on how they use Prolog in their Watson system, the one who won Jeopardy (the name was over-used afterward): https://www.cs.nmsu.edu/ALP/2011/03/natural-language-processing-with-prolog-in-the-ibm-watson-system/ https://www.cs.nmsu.edu/ALP/2011/03/natural-language-process...

jasim 8y ago

Forth! "Going Forth to Erlang" by Manoj Govindan is a great talk on the language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsZ1Ka2HPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsZ1Ka2HPQ

haolez 8y ago

Paul Graham himself considered Lisp his secret weapon, and it was very successful at that.

iLemming 8y ago
Lisp ain't no "secret weapon" anymore. Clojure has restored historical awesomeness of Lisp. It's been rated as the most paid PL in most popular dev surveys of the past two-three years. Companies like Apple, Cisco, Amazon (even NASA) are using Clojure today in production.
- haolez 8y ago
  My statement was in the past. Look up for Paul's essays on this. It happened in the nineties, if I'm not mistaken.

segmondy 8y ago

I use Prolog in production. :-) I know many people that do too and don't talk about it unless you move in the Prolog world. Here's a stock broker using it https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/CHR/files/Elston_SecuritEase.pdf https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/CHR/files/Elston_SecuritEase.pdf Java Virtual Machine specifiction is verified using prolog ", implemented the Prolog verifier that formed the basis for the specification in both Java ME and Java SE." https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-0-preface7.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-0-pr... Prolog code -> https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-4.html#jvms-4.10 https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-4.ht... https://kylecordes.com/2010/the-prolog-story https://kylecordes.com/2010/the-prolog-story IBM Watson was written in C++ and Prolog

jasim 8y ago
Thanks a ton! I was hoping to hear more about people like you when I wrote that comment.
agumonkey 8y ago
how lively is the prolog market ? do they accept semi noobs ? (read more than half of Bratko book)

kazinator 8y ago

"COBOL has historically been very secretive and low key. Its domain of use being very secretive and low key. COBOL programmers rarely work on systems that would allow for open internet chat regarding details, let alone existence. It is a tribute to the professionalism of these programmers that most people rarely, if ever, hear the name COBOL, a programming language with billions of lines of source code compiled and in production around the world over half a century." -- GnuCOBOL FAQ