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Logic programming : 22nd International Conference, ICLP 2006, Seattle, WA, USA, August 17-20, 2006, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4079)
Etalle S., Truszczynski M., Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 2007. 474 pp. Type: Book (9783540366355)
Date Reviewed: Oct 16 2007

For quite a few years now, logic programming has given the impression of a solution looking for an answer. There is something of this in this conference proceedings volume. There are a fair number of contributions from people who have long been publishing in the logic programming field, and who here offer developments from previous work that made their reputations, without much indication that this work has had any impact on the wider world. There are too many papers offering refinements on theory, or new ideas for programming languages. There are too few showing practical use of these theories, or demonstrating take-up of the programming languages outside those academics from which they were devised.

I suspect that for most people in the computing world, logic programming is still synonymous with Prolog, which was perhaps studied briefly in a comparative programming languages or artificial intelligence course. Prolog was the first programming language to demonstrate that an equivalence could be found between logical deduction and program execution. It may be a tribute to Prolog’s strength that no other logic programming language, despite many proposals, has replaced it as the default language in this paradigm. Or, it may be an indication that programming in logic is not nearly so simple and natural as was supposed when Prolog was first put forward. Still, this conference included several papers on aspects of Prolog.

Prolog, however, was intended simply as a demonstration of the viability of logic programming, produced by imposing quite a severe operational model. In practice, the ideal of programming as pure statements in logic, without considering how it works underneath, is not realized. Logic programming more generally consists of a search for ways to combine constraints until a solution that fits all of the constraints specified emerges. Prolog did this rather simplistically; much of the work in logic programming, as demonstrated in this conference, consists of looking for more sophisticated ways.

A strong new theme in logic programming, which receives much coverage in this volume, is answer set programming (ASP). There is one section of papers dedicated to it, and the majority of the papers on applications use it. ASP has its roots in nonmonotonic logic (essentially, logic where adding new information may reduce the set of possible answers), and therefore handles negation better than the simple “negation as failure” model added to Prolog. The development of work in this area is, to me, the strongest sign that there is still unexplored potential in the logic programming paradigm. Nevertheless, the opposing argument is that the complexity of the model it uses is such that it will never result in a practical programming language that can be used by those who aren’t dedicated logic programming experts. Even the applications papers that use it have a strong theoretical bias, and would not be easy reading for a nonlogician.

My general feeling from these proceedings is that logic programming remains a cozy field for those few who have managed to make academic careers out of it, but the optimism and excitement of the 1980s, when it seemed like it would become a dominant theme in computer science, has yet to return.

Reviewer:  M. Huntbach Review #: CR134844 (0809-0842)
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General (F.4.0 )
 
 
Conference Proceedings (A.0 ... )
 
 
Constraint And Logic Languages (D.3.2 ... )
 
 
Deduction And Theorem Proving (I.2.3 )
 
 
General (I.1.0 )
 
 
Language Classifications (D.3.2 )
 
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