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Sure, Erlang was prototyped on Prolog because Prolog has excellent built-in facilities for domain-specific languages: you can define new unary or binary operato

Sure, Erlang was prototyped on Prolog because Prolog has excellent built-in facilities for domain-specific languages: you can define new unary or binary operators along with priorities and associativity rules (you can use this to implement JSON or other expression parsing in like two lines of code, which is kindof shocking for newcomers, but comes very handy for integrating Prolog "microservices" into backend stacks), and you get recursive-decent parsing with backtracking for free as a trivial specialization of Prolog evaluation with a built-in short syntax (definite clause grammars) even. But apart from syntax, Erlang has quite different goals as a backend language for interruption-free telco equipment compared to Prolog.

rramadass 2y ago
In The Development of Erlang Joe Armstrong says "We concluded that we would like something like Prolog with added facilities for concurrency and improved error handling". See pdf linked here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632
- derdi 2y ago
  You're reading too much into that quote. This is in a section titled "early experiments". It was an initial goal. There is a lot of historical connection to Prolog, due to the original implementation, and there are syntactic similarities and non-linear pattern matching and dynamic types and a general declarative vibe, but the actual end result of Erlang's evolution, despite the goal of "something like Prolog", is not very much like Prolog at all. Erlang is a functional language, not a logic language. Prolog is a logic language, not a functional language. General goals like in that quote can change over the decade-long development of a language.
  - rramadass 2y ago
    You are stating some obvious things which are not what is being argued here. I only gave the above quote because it is the conclusion that the Erlang designers came to after a lot of research/playing/implementing with other languages (read the full paper and others listed below). I had also stated above that "he conceived Erlang as Prolog-Ideas+Functional/Procedural+Concurrency+Fault-Tolerance." So we already know Erlang is a different language. Note that Robert Virding also states in the Erlog page "due to the fact that Erlang evolved from Prolog". So obviously Prolog was a huge influence on Erlang design (not to be confused with the fact that the first experimentation was done in Prolog) in addition to other systems/languages. The above paper also states "It was a strange mixture, with declarative features (inherited from Prolog), multi-tasking and concurrency (inherited from EriPascal and Ada) and an original combination of error handling mechanisms". The last came from AXE/PLEX and others. Joe Armstrong wrote two papers The Development of Erlang (linked here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632) and a longer A History of Erlang (pdf at https://www.labouseur.com/courses/erlang/history-of-erlang-armstrong.pdf https://www.labouseur.com/courses/erlang/history-of-erlang-a...). In addition to his thesis (pdf at https://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf https://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf) they provide a fascinating study into what goes into the design of a language i.e. lots of messy experiments, shifting goals, inspiration/features from many different languages etc. until everything coalesces into a organic whole which is then validated by users. Reading the above two papers will give you a more complete picture of Prolog's influence on Erlang (in addition to others).
    - derdi 2y ago
      Thanks, I know that history, and nobody is denying the influence. The broader context are your claims about "a lot of commonalities here". There are commonalities, but they are shallow.
      - rramadass 2y ago
        That we have to disagree. Leaving aside the non-Prolog features, much of the Erlang syntax is definitely inspired by Prolog (mentioned in many papers including https://www.erlang.org/faq/academic https://www.erlang.org/faq/academic). That was the reason the HN submission i had referenced which linked to a reference sheet comparing Prolog/Erlang/Elixir was so interesting (direct link https://hyperpolyglot.org/logic https://hyperpolyglot.org/logic). In most cases the Erlang syntax is just a simplified version.
        derdi 2y ago
        I mentioned the syntactic similarities (and more) above. Syntax is shallow.
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
  Yeah but to be honest, Erlang ended up being not something like Prolog at all. I think Joe Armstrong was a user here and I interacted with him waaaay way back when I first joined. He's dead now :(
  - rramadass 2y ago
    See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41013798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41013798
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
      I saw, as I saw your upthread quote from the paper above but I think you misunderstand it. The previous paragraph gives context to your quote: The main conclusion [5] was that declarative language programs for POTS were a lot shorter and easier to understand than imperative language programs. Un- fortunately the declarative languages lacked features for concurrency control and had poor error handling facilities. We concluded that we would like something like Pro- log with added facilities for concurrency and improved error handling. No such language existed at the time. "Something like Prolog" here reefers to the declarative features found in Prolog as well as other declarative languages, left unnamed in the quote, which make programs "a lot shorter and easier to understand thatn imperative language programs". But that's where the "commonalities" you mention in your OP, between Prolog and Erlang, end. Similarly, CSS and XML are declarative but that's where their "commonalities" with Prolog (and Erlang) end. I'm insisting with this because I'm concerned that your comment promulgates a common misconception about the, like you say, "commonalities" between Prolog and Erlang. These end with syntactic similarities and misunderstanding this can cause some disappointment to people trying to go from one to the other. I've seen a similar misunderstanding arise about "commonalities" between Prolog and, e.g. Haskell - they both have weird, arcane syntax and immutable data structures, but that's all. Or, think of C and javascript: both Algol like syntax and in fact the first js compilres must have been written in C, but that's all. etc. There is much, much more to Prolog than the declarative syntax.

rramadass 2y ago

In The Development of Erlang Joe Armstrong says "We concluded that we would like something like Prolog with added facilities for concurrency and improved error handling". See pdf linked here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632

derdi 2y ago
You're reading too much into that quote. This is in a section titled "early experiments". It was an initial goal. There is a lot of historical connection to Prolog, due to the original implementation, and there are syntactic similarities and non-linear pattern matching and dynamic types and a general declarative vibe, but the actual end result of Erlang's evolution, despite the goal of "something like Prolog", is not very much like Prolog at all. Erlang is a functional language, not a logic language. Prolog is a logic language, not a functional language. General goals like in that quote can change over the decade-long development of a language.
- rramadass 2y ago
  You are stating some obvious things which are not what is being argued here. I only gave the above quote because it is the conclusion that the Erlang designers came to after a lot of research/playing/implementing with other languages (read the full paper and others listed below). I had also stated above that "he conceived Erlang as Prolog-Ideas+Functional/Procedural+Concurrency+Fault-Tolerance." So we already know Erlang is a different language. Note that Robert Virding also states in the Erlog page "due to the fact that Erlang evolved from Prolog". So obviously Prolog was a huge influence on Erlang design (not to be confused with the fact that the first experimentation was done in Prolog) in addition to other systems/languages. The above paper also states "It was a strange mixture, with declarative features (inherited from Prolog), multi-tasking and concurrency (inherited from EriPascal and Ada) and an original combination of error handling mechanisms". The last came from AXE/PLEX and others. Joe Armstrong wrote two papers The Development of Erlang (linked here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998632) and a longer A History of Erlang (pdf at https://www.labouseur.com/courses/erlang/history-of-erlang-armstrong.pdf https://www.labouseur.com/courses/erlang/history-of-erlang-a...). In addition to his thesis (pdf at https://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf https://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf) they provide a fascinating study into what goes into the design of a language i.e. lots of messy experiments, shifting goals, inspiration/features from many different languages etc. until everything coalesces into a organic whole which is then validated by users. Reading the above two papers will give you a more complete picture of Prolog's influence on Erlang (in addition to others).
  - derdi 2y ago
    Thanks, I know that history, and nobody is denying the influence. The broader context are your claims about "a lot of commonalities here". There are commonalities, but they are shallow.
    - rramadass 2y ago
      That we have to disagree. Leaving aside the non-Prolog features, much of the Erlang syntax is definitely inspired by Prolog (mentioned in many papers including https://www.erlang.org/faq/academic https://www.erlang.org/faq/academic). That was the reason the HN submission i had referenced which linked to a reference sheet comparing Prolog/Erlang/Elixir was so interesting (direct link https://hyperpolyglot.org/logic https://hyperpolyglot.org/logic). In most cases the Erlang syntax is just a simplified version.
      - derdi 2y ago
        I mentioned the syntactic similarities (and more) above. Syntax is shallow.
YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
Yeah but to be honest, Erlang ended up being not something like Prolog at all. I think Joe Armstrong was a user here and I interacted with him waaaay way back when I first joined. He's dead now :(
- rramadass 2y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41013798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41013798
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
    I saw, as I saw your upthread quote from the paper above but I think you misunderstand it. The previous paragraph gives context to your quote: The main conclusion [5] was that declarative language programs for POTS were a lot shorter and easier to understand than imperative language programs. Un- fortunately the declarative languages lacked features for concurrency control and had poor error handling facilities. We concluded that we would like something like Pro- log with added facilities for concurrency and improved error handling. No such language existed at the time. "Something like Prolog" here reefers to the declarative features found in Prolog as well as other declarative languages, left unnamed in the quote, which make programs "a lot shorter and easier to understand thatn imperative language programs". But that's where the "commonalities" you mention in your OP, between Prolog and Erlang, end. Similarly, CSS and XML are declarative but that's where their "commonalities" with Prolog (and Erlang) end. I'm insisting with this because I'm concerned that your comment promulgates a common misconception about the, like you say, "commonalities" between Prolog and Erlang. These end with syntactic similarities and misunderstanding this can cause some disappointment to people trying to go from one to the other. I've seen a similar misunderstanding arise about "commonalities" between Prolog and, e.g. Haskell - they both have weird, arcane syntax and immutable data structures, but that's all. Or, think of C and javascript: both Algol like syntax and in fact the first js compilres must have been written in C, but that's all. etc. There is much, much more to Prolog than the declarative syntax.