mathematics

Visual Prolog

Visual Prolog is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Visual Prolog rather than just read about it. In short: Visual Prolog, previously known as PDC Prolog and Turbo Prolog, is a strongly typed object-oriented extension of Prolog. It was marketed by Borland as Turbo Prolog (version 1.0 in 1986 and version 2.0 in 1988).

Key takeaways

Visual Prolog belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Visual Prolog to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Visual Prolog from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Visual Prolog, previously known as PDC Prolog and Turbo Prolog, is a strongly typed object-oriented extension of Prolog. It was marketed by Borland as Turbo Prolog (version 1.0 in 1986 and version 2.0 in 1988). It is now developed and marketed by the Danish firm PDC that originally created it. Visual Prolog can build Microsoft Windows GUI-applications, console applications, DLLs (dynamic link libraries), and CGI-programs. It can also link to COM components and to databases by means of ODBC. Visual Prolog contains a compiler which generates x86 and x86-64 machine code. Unlike standard Prolog, programs written in Visual Prolog are statically typed. This allows some errors to be caught at compile-time instead of run-time.

History

Hanoi example In the Towers of Hanoi example, the Prolog inference engine figures out how to move a stack of any number of progressively smaller disks, one at a time, from the left pole to the right pole in the described way, by means of a center as transit, so that there's never a bigger disk on top of a smaller disk. The predicate hanoi takes an integer indicating the number of disks as an initial argument.

Reception Bruce F. Webster of BYTE praised Turbo Prolog in September 1986, stating that it was the first Borland product to excite him as much as Turbo Pascal did. He liked the user interface and low price, and reported that two BYU professors stated that it was superior to the Prolog they used at the university. While questioning the market demand for the language, Webster concluded that "Turbo Prolog may be as significant a leap in software design as Turbo Pascal represented three years ago", and recommended it to those "at all interested in artificial intelligence, databases, expert systems, or new ways of thinking about programming". Another author in the magazine that month wrote that the language's nonstandard, more structured syntax as making "source listings much more readable than those of standard Prolog". While stating that it had "many good features", he stated that Turbo Prolog's "Turbo Pascal flavor in its compiler and strong data typing ... create an identity problem for the language". Describing it as "Turbo Paslog", the author concluded that he does "not recommend it if you are seriously considering becoming a Prolog programmer". The magazine in 1989 listed Turbo Prolog 2.0 as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards, approving of how Borland had "developed a system for real-world applications programming".

Books about Visual Prolog Thomas W. de Boer, A Beginners Guide to Visual Prolog Chinese translation Eduardo Costa, Visual Prolog for Tyros Russian translation Chinese translation Giovanni Torrero, VISUAL PROLOG PER PRINCIPIANTI Italian 113 pages (pdf) Randall Scott, A Guide to Artificial Intelligence with Visual Prolog, ISBN 978-1-4327-4936-1

See also Comparison of Prolog implementations Logtalk Mercury (programming language) Prolog syntax and semantics

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Visual Prolog

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Visual Prolog claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Visual Prolog before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Visual Prolog ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Visual Prolog

In research: Visual Prolog appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Visual Prolog in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Visual Prolog is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Borland software, Class-based programming languages, Compilers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Visual Prolog outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Visual Prolog in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Visual Prolog means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Visual Prolog out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Visual Prolog in simple terms?

Why does Visual Prolog matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Visual Prolog?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Visual Prolog.