wdh@linus.UUCP (W. Dale Hall) (03/28/89)
Does anyone out there in net.land have any experience with the products of Arity Corporation? I am considering obtaining their "Combination Package" which has Prolog (compiler and interpreter), an Expert Systems Development Package (presumably a shell and some built-in functions to make development a tolerable experience), an SQL Development Package (for database manipulation), and some form of Prolog toolbox. Unfortunately, I don't have any experince with Arity products, only a couple of Prolog dialects (SB, UNH) available locally. So, how do those of you with (any?) experience feel about the usefulness of this set-o-stuff? What about technical support/updates or documentation? Is it worth $1K +/- change? Comments, rave reviews, horror stories are all welcome. Dale.
todd@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Todd Ogasawara) (03/30/89)
In article <47016@linus.UUCP> wdh@linus.UUCP (W. Dale Hall) writes: >Does anyone out there in net.land have any experience with the >products of Arity Corporation? I am considering obtaining their I've been using Arity/Prolog for several years now. I started with 3.0 and just received the 5.1 upgrade (interpreter and compiler). >"Combination Package" which has Prolog (compiler and interpreter), an >Expert Systems Development Package (presumably a shell and some >built-in functions to make development a tolerable experience), an SQL >Development Package (for database manipulation), and some form of >Prolog toolbox. I only have the toolbox. However, I will friends who purchased the ES and SQL kits for their opinions and ask them to post it to the net. The toolbox consists of (I'm going from memory here, I don't have the toolbox nearby at the moment) file interchange routines (all in source code form) and a Dialog Editor Program which allows you to easily create data entry screens. >Unfortunately, I don't have any experince with Arity products, only a >couple of Prolog dialects (SB, UNH) available locally. So, how do >those of you with (any?) experience feel about the usefulness of this >set-o-stuff? What about technical support/updates or documentation? Is >it worth $1K +/- change? Comments, rave reviews, horror stories are >all welcome. I have a love-hate relationship with my Arity/Prolog environment. When I bought version 3.0, I had already tried and rejected a number of MS-DOS based Prolog environments. From what I see currently available, I still feel that way. Version 5.0 was the only really buggy version that Arity ever shipped to me. Versions 3.0, 4.0, and 5.1 (the most recent) appear to be solid if all you want to do is pure Prolog. My gripe is with the C linkage. I use Microsoft C 5.1 (and had used its precursors) with Arity. Or, I should, I try to. Arity V4.0 worked just great with Microsoft C. I could pass data between routines with no problem and had written graphics routines to could be called from within the Arity Prolog Interpreter (API) [I was bascially extending the interpreter by creating my own fast-running predicates in C to do things like graphics, handle serial I/O, etc.]. However, I found that I could pass data from Prolog to C but not the reverse when Arity 5.0 came out. The Arity-C link has become even worse with Arity V5.1. When I tried to link my routines (after studying the changes they had made to the interface between Prolog and C), I found that I couldn't even start up the rebuilt interpreter. Very annoying. Doing Prolog-only work, however, appears to be stable with V5.1. No more system locks and things for no apparent reason. Their extensions to the C&M dialect of Prolog have always been reasonable and reasonbly well thought out in its implementation. I've always had a problem with their documentation though. Although its appearance (typography, etc.) has improved dramatically over the years, the content has always been lacking. The examples of the use of their extensions, for example, have always been very sketchy or non-existent. The addenda to the typographical errors in their manuals has always exceeded my patience to go through the manual and red-ink the changes (pages and pages and pages of addenda in README files is the norm). After saying all that you might think the hate part I refered to above was for the company. However, that is NOT the case. I find it hard to dislike a company that answers my questions in a timely and reasonable way. Having spoken to a number of other Arity users, I think it is safe to say that the folks at Arity Corp treat their customers with more respect that we tend to find in other software firms like ______ (fill in the blank with your favorite software company to hate :-) I also found that they were very easy to deal with in the early days when I went begging for an educational discount even though I only wanted to purchase one copy of their interpreter/compiler. They have since sold more units to other people on this campus and have offered very attractive educational discounts. In summary... Arity/Prolog has some problems just as every major interpreter/compiler on the market does. However, it is solid enough to do real-world PC based programming on and to use as a delivery vehicle for small to medium sized projects. -- Todd Ogasawara, U. of Hawaii Faculty Development Program/Focal Point UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax,dcdwest}!ucsd!nosc!uhccux!todd ARPA: uhccux!todd@nosc.MIL BITNET: todd@uhccux INTERNET: todd@uhccux.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU <==I'm told this rarely works
slzr@bunny.UUCP (Suzanne Sluizer) (04/08/89)
In article <47016@linus.UUCP> wdh@linus.UUCP (W. Dale Hall) writes: >Does anyone out there in net.land have any experience with the >products of Arity Corporation? I am considering obtaining their >"Combination Package" which has Prolog (compiler and interpreter), an >Expert Systems Development Package (presumably a shell and some >built-in functions to make development a tolerable experience), an SQL >Development Package (for database manipulation), and some form of >Prolog toolbox. I have been using Arity/Prolog for over 2 years now. (I use the compiler and interpreter. I also have limited experience with the toolbox, but none at all with the expert system package.) We have developed an executable specification/modeling tool, which consists of more than 100 pages of Prolog. It runs under C-Prolog, Quintus Prolog and Arity/Prolog. In general, the code that runs under one Prolog runs under the others (there is less than one page of code difference among the three). Normally, I do most of my development using Arity/Prolog. I tried to put up our modeling tool under ALS Prolog (on the PC, with the idea of eventually transferring it to the MAC). However, I discovered many problems with ALS and it was unable to handle a program of the size of our tool. Arity/Prolog Versions 5.0 and 5.0x (and presumably 5.1) handle it easily. I started with Version 4 and upgraded to Version 5.0x last summer. Version 4 was slow, and didn't allow you to control much in the way of your environment (e.g. heap sizes). Howver, if you wrote "kosher" Prolog, it worked well enough. Versions 5.0 (and higher) allow much more control, which is important if you write large Prolog programs. Versions 5.0 and 5.0x were incredibly buggy when I got them. It took about 1 1/2 days to transfer our system from Version 4 to Version 5.0x. Many problems were only resolved by calling Arity/Prolog customer support and asking for help. (For example, "reconsult" did not work properly and "listing" did not work properly.) However, once these initial problems were resolved (an interim Version was downloaded from the Arity customer bulletin board), I had no further problems. Other people here found additional problems with Version 5.0x (the interface to C didn't work well and there was a problems with definite clause grammars). However, Versions 5.0 and 5.0x ran like "a bat out of hell". It was much faster, for example, than interpreted C-Prolog on a Vax 750 or a Microvax (and this was just interpreted Prolog). However, the new Version 5.1 seems to have solved all these problems, according to my colleagues at GTE Labs. I have not been able to try out 5.1 as I just received it a week or two ago, and my PC died recently and is undergoing major repairs. I recommend Arity/Prolog. They have a dialect of Prolog that is similar, but not identical, to Clocksin & Mellish. It is based on Dec-10 Prolog. I have also found the customer service people at Arity to be quite helpful. However, the Arity sense of time seems to be different than mine. When I ran into problems last summer with 5.0 and 5.0x, I was told that 5.1 would be shipped "in a few weeks". I just finally received it a couple of weeks ago. -- Suzanne Sluizer CSNET: slzr%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET GTE Laboratories UUCP: ...!harvard!bunny!slzr 617-466-2882 "Truth is a pathless land." -- Krishnamurti