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
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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
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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
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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
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End of PROLOG Digest
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