Bundy%edxa@ucl-cs.arpa (06/06/84)
From: Bundy HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) <Bundy%edxa@ucl-cs.arpa>
I realise there is a shortage of people in the logic
programming area, but I would not have thought that it was much
worse than many other areas of computing, e.g. AI. However,
the AI Dept in Edinburgh recently advertised three tenure track
lectureships in: logic programming, vision and robotics. The
number of candidates applying in each case was:
vision 6, robotics 3, and logic programming 0!
Now this might have been:
(a) a statistical freak
(b) a recognition that Edinburgh's reputation is not as strong
as it used to be during the golden ages of Kowalski, Warren,
Pereira, Byrd and Bowen
(c) just a general shortage of LP people.
If another note does not bring in some candidates that will be
evidence against (a). I will let you know.
Against (b) I would have thought our reputation in logic
programming was at least of good as that in vision. Does anybody
have a feel for whether all the current interest in Prolog is
producing some good postgraduate students. If not, then we are
failing as a field and ought to do something about it.
-- Alan Bundygreg@hwcs.UUCP (Greg Michaelson) (07/11/84)
Given there's a somewhat pronounced recession and that undergraduates are getting more and more edgy about getting jobs, the absence of postgraduates in an area of little interest outside academia is not very suprising. Once/if logic programming takes off in 'real world' computing there'll be an increase in emphasis from students on learning it. Look at the way the totally bogus topic of 'microcomputing' has mushroomed! There's a lot more to logic programming than Von-Neumann-on-a-chip but until it has increased social exposure students won't want to know. Perhaps I have an over pessimistic view of students, but my impression is that they're getting more and more conservative. Greg Michaelson, Dept. Comp. Sci., Heriot-Watt U., Edinburgh, Scotland.