Prolog Programming in Depth [Facsimile] [Paperback]

Michael A. Covington (Author), Donald Nute (Author), Andre Vellino (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 013138645X | ISBN-13: 978-0131386457 | Publication Date: May 31, 1996 | Edition: 1

This book covers the Prolog programming language thoroughly with an emphasis on building practical application software, not just theory. Working through this book, readers build several types of expert systems, as well as natural language processing software and utilities to read foreign file formats. This is the first book to cover ISO Standard Prolog, but the programs are compatible with earlier dialects of the language. Program files are available by FTP from The University of Georgia.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This text covers the Prolog programming language thoroughly with an emphasis on building practical application software, not just theory. Working through this book, students build several types of expert systems, as well as natural language processing software and utilities to read foreign file formats. This is the first book to cover ISO Standard Prolog, but the programs are compatible with earlier dialects of the language. Program files are available by FTP from The University of Georgia.

From the Back Cover

This book covers the Prolog programming language thoroughly with an emphasis on building practical application software, not just theory. Working through this book, readers build several types of expert systems, as well as natural language processing software and utilities to read foreign file formats. This is the first book to cover ISO Standard Prolog, but the programs are compatible with earlier dialects of the language. Program files are available by FTP from The University of Georgia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 516 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (May 31, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 013138645X
• ISBN-13: 978-0131386457
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Prolog

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great starter book, April 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Prolog Programming in Depth (Paperback)

Lots of practical tips early in the book, particularly on I/O, get the reader off to a fast start in Prolog. This reviewer felt lost in Prolog until he read this text. The breadth of examples is impressive.

The only flaw on this book is the author's tendency to fight some ideological battles that the reader does not care about. Their tone is unnecessarily hostile, particularly in the introduction to Chapter 4. But that's only one paragraph in an otherwise wonderful book.

It is a great book for getting started, and getting a feel for Prolog, but it is no substitute for a thorough text that includes some theory.

Theory is not a bad word. A working understanding of how the logic interpreter works is important for debugging.

In my opinion, Chapter 3 is denser than it appears, and should be studied carefully. cf. the discussion of append. This reviewer has done the exercises using SWI prolog with only minor adaptations.

All told, a solid introduction. A good book to read before (but not instead of) a more theoretical introduction such as The Art of Prolog.

Even though freeware prologs exist on the internet, the appeal of this "practical" book would be greatly increased if the authors arranged to have a CD of some freeware prologs included with the text.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An unexpected gem, October 16, 2005

By 

Randall Helzerman (campbell, ca) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prolog Programming in Depth (Paperback)

One of the most underrated schools of thought in AI and NLP is the the school which was lead by Michael Covington and Donald Nute at University of Georgia. It is the opinion of this reviewer that this school produced, in its papers, thesis of grad students, and books, the most impressive results in discourse representation theory produced in the western hemisphere, and are comparable with those produced anywhere else in the world.

This book--a product of that school--is such an unexpected little gem of a prolog book. I wish I would have stumbled across it much earlier in my quest for prolog mastery, because it would have saved me at least 18 months of struggling to learn prolog tools and techniques--techniques which were not only scattered among dozens of books, but were not nearly as clearly described.

One area which this book covers which virtually no other prolog book covers is nondefault reasoning. Really a remarkable discussion. Unfortunately, I think that the techniques of nondefault reasoning which are covered in this book have been superceeded by newer techniques, such as probabilistic horn abduction and Baysian methods. But just because these techniques are of historical interest doesn't mean they are of no interest, and the treatment they get here is clear, honest, and more complete than anywhere else I've looked.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good reference for developers, March 18, 1998

By 

Serdar Sisman([e-mail]) (Istanbul,Turkiye) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prolog Programming in Depth (Paperback)

This book has been an excellent material for me to develop my Logic Programming skills. That is because it provides not only theory of Prolog programming but also very useful artificial intelligence applications and expert system shells even with uncertainty. Another useful feature I liked much is; the book makes comparisons (where needed) between how to do the same thing in Prolog and in a conventional programming language, Pascal.