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From: Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Corr. Typo (Was: Is SWI-Prolog backward oriented or forward
 oriented?)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2025 13:13:01 +0200
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Corr.: Forgot to show the correct answer substitution:

?- X = [a,b,c]
X = `abc`

Mild Shock schrieb:
>  > has a flag (module sensitive) called var_prefix.
> 
> Interesting backward oriented featuritis, to support
> Prolog systems from the past, can be also rationalized
> as useful for the present. You find a few real world
> 
> source code listings in the Computer Museum below,
> very old Prolog systems used the star (*) as a variable
> prefix, then some Prolog systems used the underscore (_)
> 
> as variable prefix. Lower case was not always supported,
> some Prolog systems had a ‘NOLC’ (No-Lower Case) and
> ‘LC’ (Lower Case) directive, to switch modes:
> 
> Computer History Museum’s Software Preservation Group
> https://www.softwarepreservation.org/
> 
> Edit 29.06.2025:
> If only SWI-Prolog would put the same effort in forward
> oriented features that it does in backward oriented
> features, i.e. features that deal with Prolog systems
> 
> of the future. For example supporting this trivial gadget:
> 
> ?- X = [a,b,c]
> `abc`
> 
> Mild Shock schrieb:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Interrestingly Prolog nearly had a "Jazelle":
>>
>> Meanwhile, in Oxford I made contact with Tim [Robinson]
>> from High Level Hardware, who had developed a microcoded
>> workstation called the Orion (there is a good Wikipedia
>> article on this machine). Tim wanted a Prolog system for
>> the Orion, so I gave him the Prolog-X reference
>> implementation. He microcoded it, and we reckoned
>> it would have amazing performance because of that.
>> However, several simultaneous events conspired to
>> halt the microcoded Prolog on the Orion.
>> https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/prolog
>>
>> Derived from Prolog-X, so basically from ZIP.
>>
>> Bye
>>
>> Mild Shock schrieb:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Jeff Barnet might have a point:
>>>
>>>  > Fran's specialty was bring graph theory into computer development
>>>
>>> although he sounds boring. Prolog is very
>>> weak when using graph theory to code generation.
>>> Even Prolog Cafe is based on WAM, and not LLVM.
>>>
>>> WAM is linear code, LLVM sees code as graph
>>> of blocks. Here is an example:
>>>
>>> entry:
>>>    %cond = icmp eq i32 %x, 0
>>>    br i1 %cond, label %if_zero, label %if_nonzero
>>>
>>> if_zero:
>>>    ; do something
>>>    br label %merge
>>>
>>> if_nonzero:
>>>    ; do something else
>>>    br label %merge
>>>
>>> merge:
>>>    %val = phi i32 [0, %if_zero], [1, %if_nonzero]
>>>    ret i32 %val
>>>
>>> Its not the AST of the source code, but the IR,
>>> i.e. internal representation after some AST
>>> processing.
>>>
>>> Today I was wrestling quite a number of hours,
>>> to figure out whether liveness analysis can
>>> be done in one pass. My Prolog system Dogelog
>>>
>>> Player uses two passes, so that assertz/1 is
>>> a little slow. Maybe I implement a fast path
>>> without the liveness analysis for the
>>>
>>> dynamic database, to speed it up.
>>>
>>> Bye
>>>
>>> Mild Shock schrieb:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Back in the early days SUN was already talking
>>>> about Java on in CPU. Interestingly this happened:
>>>>
>>>> The most prominent use of Jazelle DBX is by
>>>> manufacturers of mobile phones to increase the
>>>> execution speed of Java ME games and applications.
>>>> A Jazelle-aware Java virtual machine (JVM) will
>>>> attempt to run Java bytecode in hardware, while
>>>> returning to the software for more complicated,
>>>> or lesser-used bytecode operations. ARM claims that
>>>> approximately 95% of bytecode in typical program
>>>> usage ends up being directly processed in the hardware.
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazelle
>>>>
>>>> So in the 90's we had first internet, and then
>>>> in the 00's we had mobile phones. The 10's had
>>>> big data and early deep leearning.
>>>>
>>>> But Python is still slow as fuck in the 20's.
>>>> They should invent a CPU that can do Pantilope,
>>>> i.e. direct executon of Python.
>>>>
>>>> Bye
>>>
>>
>