UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (04/10/88)
A CS student posted that he doubted that PROLOG and LISP, though "fun", would be much use to him when he got a job. Just for one example, current research in Database Systems clearly indicates that logic programming and database programming are converging. A person with some knowledge of Prolog, say, will be much better able to learn and use SQL or QUEL (current major database languages).
thomsen@trwspf.TRW.COM (Mark Thomsen) (04/13/88)
In article <38799UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >A CS student posted that he doubted that PROLOG and LISP, though >"fun", would be much use to him when he got a job. > >Just for one example, current research in Database Systems clearly >indicates that logic programming and database programming are converging. >A person with some knowledge of Prolog, say, will be much better able >to learn and use SQL or QUEL (current major database languages). I should hope by now that there are a lot of jobs out there that require LISP, based on the number of Lisp machines that are being sold and based on its acceptance by the major computer manufacturers. (Trivia question: What is the largest computer manufacturer in terms of number of machines or in terms of revenue who doesn't either sell their own Lisp or have a few 3rd party Lisps?). I agree with the assessment of PROLOG as a basis for understanding where DB technology has evolved to. I presume that the question was not whether learning a language such as Prolog is of benefit if you don't program in it - learning new programming paradigms is practically always worth the effort for a professional software engineer or computer scientist. I would add that Prolog may be a language whose time in the sun has arrived. Goal-directed programming techniques are coming to the forefront again, and blackboards are commonly showing up in industry. Around my niche anyway. We are seriously investigating integrating Prolog into systems environments for applications. While you won't have as many job opportunities as if you are an "Ada program- mer" or even a "Lisp programmer", there will be an increasing number of jobs where Prolog programming is useful. By the by, with few exceptions most of the opportunities to use symbolic programming languages come in context of integrating with procedural and number crunching processes. I usually find pure Lisp and Prolog situations to smack of ivory tower situations - as an emperical observation. Mark R. Thomsen TRW Space and Defense Sector Redondo Beach, CA
shebs%defun.utah.edu.uucp@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs) (04/14/88)
In article <727@trwspf.TRW.COM> thomsen@trwspf.UUCP (Mark Thomsen) writes: >I should hope by now that there are a lot of jobs out there that require >LISP, based on the number of Lisp machines that are being sold and based on >its acceptance by the major computer manufacturers. There's not as many as you might think - nearly all of the Lisp-related work is in research and not in product development, and I've seen/heard about large numbers of Lisp machines sitting idle or turned off, in favor of the more conventional workstations. Not a strong trend, but just enough movement that one should be wary... >[...] I would add that >Prolog may be a language whose time in the sun has arrived. Prolog's time in the sun may be very shortlived (for a variety of reasons), but no doubt I'm just being pessimistic. stan shebs shebs@cs.utah.edu