Zephyr: Toward true compiler-based programming in Prolog

摘要

Prolog is widely used in prototyping, especially in artificial intelligence, but it has yet to gain widespread acceptance in application development. We think that the problems in this area result from the programming style enforced in existing Prolog systems. Zephyr is a new Prolog system refined and enhanced to help solve such problems. It allows users to do modular programming by always using a compiler instead of an interpreter. In this paper, we describe the unique features of Zephyr which make this possible, focusing especially on package, metafunctions, and tables, and the implementation of the system on OS/2®.