Bratko’s Prolog has long been one of the best books about declarative programming for AI, and this new edition continues that tradition. The book is divided into two parts. The first part (little changed from previous editions) is an excellent introduction to declarative programming in general, and Prolog in particular. No programming experience on the part of the reader is assumed. Since even those familiar with imperative or object-oriented programming can find the shift to declarative programming difficult, this is not a drawback. The clarity of this treatment is deceptive; one moves very quickly through the basic concepts. Many examples and exercises, and periodic summaries, assist the reader. The chapter on programming style and technique is excellent; it should be read right after the introduction and referred to as study progresses.
The second part of this book is a sort of apologia for the existence of Prolog, a demonstration of the power and elegance of the language. Topics covered in depth include search, expert systems, planning, machine learning, language processing, game playing, and meta-programming. New in the third edition are chapters on constraint logic programming, inductive logic programming, and qualitative reasoning. While owners of previous editions will find the new edition well worth looking at for these new chapters alone, the chapters on knowledge representation, search, and machine learning have also been updated.
This part of the book includes lengthy and detailed examples, which reveal Bratko’s love of the language and flair for design (unfortunately, the examples are not publicly available in software form). These chapters can be used as a reference by experienced Prolog programmers, or as an adjunct to an introductory or advanced AI course. The references at the end of each chapter are useful, though not as comprehensive as one might like. The appendix on the differences between Prolog implementations, and the list of frequently used predicates, could be more complete but are nonetheless helpful.
