RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA (08/06/85)
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA> PROLOG Digest Monday, 5 Aug 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: Editorial - Digest Advertisements, Announcements - Call for papers & Flat Concurrent Prolog ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 1 Aug 85 20:21:26-PDT From: Pereira@SRI-AI Subject: Advertisements on the Prolog digest I was disturbed to see what amounts to an advertisement to POPLOG in the latest Prolog Digest. This would be acceptable if POPLOG were a genuine academic system available to all just for a handling fee, but this is only the case for UK academic institutions (as the ad indicates near the end). Others must acquire POPLOG from a commercial distributor who sells it on behalf of Sussex University. I think this use of the digest is unethical, infringes the ARPANET rules and is unfair to other Prolog suppliers that cannot or will not avail themselves of such a ``convenient'' form of free advertisement. I leave you to reach your own conclusions about a software supplier that uses such means to advertise its products. -- Fernando Pereira ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 85 19:04:32 -0200 From: Ehud Shapiro <Udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM> Subject: Call for papers CALL FOR PAPERS Third International Conference on Logic Programming Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK July 14-18, 1986 In cooperation with: Association for Computing Machinery British Computer Society IEEE Computer Society Japan Society for Software Science and Technology The conference will consider all aspects of logic programming, including, but not limited to: Theory and foundations Architectures and Implementations Methodology Programming Languages and Environments Applications Relations to other computation models, programming languages, and programming methodologies. Of special interest are papers related to parallel processing, papers discussing novel applications and applications that address the unique character of logic programming, and papers which constitute a contribution to computer science at large. Papers can be submitted under two categories, short -- up to 2000 words, and long -- up to 6000 words. Submissions will be considered on the basis of appropriateness, clarity, originality, significance, and overall quality. Authors should send eight copies of their manuscript, plus an extra copy of the abstract, to: Ehud Shapiro ICLP Program Chairman The Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot 76100, Israel. Deadline for submission of papers is December 1, 1985. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by February 28, 1986. Camera ready copies are due April 1st, 1986. General Chairman Keith Clark Imperial College of Science and Technology 180 Queen's Gate London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom Local Arrangements and Exhibition Chairman Richard Ennals Imperial College of Science and Technology 180 Queen's Gate London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom Program Committee Martin van Caneghem, University of Marseille, France Veronica Dahl, Simon Fraser University, Canada Maarten van Emden, University of Waterloo, Canada Kazuhiro Fuchi, ICOT, Japan Koichi Furukawa, ICOT, Japan Ake Hanssen, Uppsala University, Sweden Kenneth M. Kahn, Xerox PARC, USA Peter Koves, Logicware Inc., Canada Giorgio Levi, University of Pisa, Italy John Lloyd, University of Melbourne, Australia Frank G. McCabe, Imperial College, UK Jack Minker, Maryland University, USA Fernando Pereira, SRI International, USA Luis M. Pereira, University of Lisbon, Portugal Antonio Porto, University of Lisbon, Portugal Ehud Shapiro, Chairman, Weizmann Institute, Israel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 85 15:25:56 -0200 From: Ehud Shapiro <Udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM> Subject: Beta test-sites for our Flat Concurrent Prolog We will be ready in a month or so to release our Flat Concurrent Prolog system to beta test sites (FCP is the And-parallel subset of Concurrent Prolog). The system consists of an emulator for a Warren-style FCP abstract machine, written in C, which also includes kernels and a garbage collector; an FCP compiler, written entirely in FCP (including the tokenizer, parser, precompiler, encoder, and assembler); and a basic interactive programming environmnt that includes a shell, I/O routines, and a source-level debugger, which are also written in FCP. The system has an interesting module system, which implements remote procedure calls via message-passing between module manager processes. It supports separate compilation and runtime linking. The system runs on VAX and on the Sun under Berkeley Unix 4.2. It runs at about the third of the speed of Quintus Prolog on the Vax for similar programs, on a wide range of examples. Some statistics: compiling the main module of the compiler, the encoder, which is 8937 bytes and 418 lines of code long, takes 258 CPU seconds on the VAX/750. The resulting binary file is 17560 bytes of code long (at present we use word-encoding, rather then byte encoding for the abstract machine instructions). The compilation consumes about 1.5 Mbytes of heap memory (without garbage collection). During this computation, 29000 processes are generated (yes, twenty nine thousand), and altogether they perform 92000 reductions. During the computation 13000 process suspensions occur. This gives an effective rate of 350 process reductions per second, and an avarage of 3 reductions per process. The system's C code is currently 5270 lines of code long, 2942 for the emulator, 1624 for kernels, and 704 for the garbage collector. Its FCP code is currently 4529 lines of code long, 2060 for the compiler, 324 for the debugger, 722 for I/O, and 1423 for the rest of the system. Of course the interactive shell and the compiler share the tokenizer and parser. The main designers and implementors of the system are Avshalom Houri and myself. Other contributors include Bill Silverman, Michael Hirsch, Jim Crammond, Colin Mierowski, Steve Taylor, Muli Safra, Nir Friedman, and Shimon Cohen. The development of the system was supported by IBM Poughkeepsie, Data Systems Division. The system is still under development. The major avenues of improvement being investigated at present are extending the module system to be hierarchical, and to integrate better the debugging and module concepts; integrating the system with a partial evaluator; improving the performance by optimizing the emulator and improving the instruction set (we do not plan at present rewriting the emulator in assembler or in micro-code); adding a window system; an independent file-system; and other gadgets. Longer term research includes full compilation and implementation on a multiprocessor. We plan to distribute the system following standard university basedsoftware distribution practices. Before releasing the system for the general public, we would like to obtain some feedback, and improve the system some more. We would like to deliver it to some selected groups with strong logic programming or concurrent programming background, who are interested in one or more of the following: 1. Improve and extend the system in various ways. 2. Use it as a research tool for developing pilot FCP applications. 3. Use it to teach a course in concurrent logic programming. (we beleive it is reliable enough even at present for this. It has just begun to be used for doing course projects in my Concurrent Prolog Programming course at the Hebrew University and at the Weizmann Institute, so we will know better in a few weeks). Interested parties should contact me, with relevant information, at: udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.arpa or ...!decvax!humus!wisdom!udi We hope to sort out the details of the distribution mechanism by mid-August. -- Ehud Shapiro ------------------------------ End of PROLOG Digest ********************