Prolog

Prolog is the coolest language I know. If it were legal to marry programming languages, I would marry Prolog. :)

A surprising number of people already know Prolog, but when I ask them why they don't use it on a regular basis they claim that they just don't see how it can be used for practical applications. I don't think this is indicative of any failing on the part of Prolog, but I believe it is more likely to be a reflection on the fact that most Prolog tutorials are really poorly written and assume that commercial developers actually cares about writing silly programs that prove things like 'Jack' is a sibling of 'Jill'.

I acknowledge that there are many problems for which Prolog just is a bad choice. However, there are just as many problems for which Prolog is fantastic. Prolog can often make a large, complex or impossible problem enter the realm of feasibility. What is more, it not only makes a solution feasible, but sometimes makes the solution trivial.

I recommend the completely free SWI Prolog, but there are many other Prolog implementations - I'm sure you'll find at least one to suit your needs.

Over time, I intend to add content to this site demonstrating the application of Prolog to real business problems. I want to provide pointers, tools and suggestions that help boost the popularity of Prolog in a commercial environment. Feel free to check out what I've created so far:

• This website is implemented using Prolog Server Pages. You can download it for free and run it under any webserver (I've provided instructions for Apache and IIS). Please check it out.
• Screen Scraping is a somewhat unexpected, but surprisingly effective application of Prolog. This is a tutorial explaining how to do it with SWI-Prolog.

Feedback

If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I can be reached by email or by a web-based email/SMS form.

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