Softpanorama

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Home Switchboard Unix Administration Red Hat TCP/IP Networks Neoliberalism Toxic Managers
(slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and  bastardization of classic Unix

Best Prolog language books

News

Reviews

See also

Open

Top Books

Introductory

Advanced

Algorithms

     

 

Humor

Etc

Most of Prolog textbooks are dull and examples are artificial and repetitive.  They usually give no ideas on how particular feature is implemented and provide no mental framework, as if the authors conspired to hide the real knowledge from you. One of the most interesting discussion of Prolog is in context of Lisp can be found in 

Artificial Intelligence Modern Approach Stuart J. Russell, Peter Norvig

Another book wriiten by a person who knows Lisp well is Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence by Ivan Bratko (Author)

NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

Artificial Intelligence Modern Approach Stuart J. Russell, Peter Norvig

Homepage: Artificial Intelligence A Modern Approach

(Second Edition) by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig

Preface (html); chapter map
Part I Artificial Intelligence
1 Introduction
2 Intelligent Agents
Part II Problem Solving
3 Solving Problems by Searching
4 Informed Search and Exploration
5 Constraint Satisfaction Problems (pdf)
6 Adversarial Search
Part III Knowledge and Reasoning
7 Logical Agents (pdf)
8 First-Order Logic
9 Inference in First-Order Logic
10 Knowledge Representation
Part IV Planning
11 Planning (pdf)
12 Planning and Acting in the Real World
Part V Uncertain Knowledge and Reasoning
13 Uncertainty
14 Probabilistic Reasoning
15 Probabilistic Reasoning Over Time
16 Making Simple Decisions
17 Making Complex Decisions
Part VI Learning
18 Learning from Observations
19 Knowledge in Learning
20 Statistical Learning Methods (pdf)
21 Reinforcement Learning
Part VII Communicating, Perceiving, and Acting
22 Communication
23 Probabilistic Language Processing
24 Perception
25 Robotics
Part VIII Conclusions
26 Philosophical Foundations
27 AI: Present and Future
Bibliography (pdf and counts)
Index (html or pdf)

Programming in Prolog Using the ISO Standard Books

by W.F. Clocksin,C.S. Mellish

Concise presentation of Prolog, June 15, 2000

Reviewer: Armen Jamkotchian (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Prolog is a complex subject, especially for someone not well familiar with mathematical logic. Thus, it is very important how the foundation would be laid down. Typically the books I had read on Prolog tend to two extremes. They are either too condensed for such a complicated subject as logical programming, or too broad and mathematically intensive. I would put this book into the first category. Though very concise and well structured, this book does not seem to be a good primer.

I would rather recommend the book of Ivan Bratko "Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence (International Computer Science Series)" 2nd edition (the third edition of this book is due in August 2000).

Ivan Bratko had managed to find the optimal style of presenting both the essence and the practical aspects of the language. Bratko's book covers various practical applications of the language and manages to convey the basic concepts of Prolog without overwhelming the beginner with too abstract or too condensed passages.

Nevertheless, "Programming in Prolog" could be a very good programming reference once you are relatively comfortable with the language.

The Art of Prolog, Second Edition Advanced Programming Techniques (Logic Programming)

Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence

by Ivan Bratko (Author)

I thought the book could be better, December 27, 2001
Reviewer: A reader
I find the book does not adequetly explain the more complex code examples.

First of all the code is not adequetly commented.

Secondly, it does not explain the code well for programmers. First when introducing a program like in the expert systems shell chapter it should first define an interface for the program, and explain each goal listed. It should adequetly explain what each goal and clause should hope to achieve. Also, for the more complicated programs it should draw some type of diagram, maybe a flow chart or something that explains the concepts involved. It leaves too much figuring out and guessing for the reader. It is not very user-friendly!

On the positive side, it does an adequate job of explaining concepts when complex code is not involved. I found that I could follow along on even the more advanced chapters mostly everything at least until code was suddenly introduced. Then it became a guessing game as to what it was trying to do.

The author does not seem to realize that it is more difficult to try to understand somebody else's program than it is to write your own program from scratch. As a consequence the reader wastes a lot of time trying to guess what his program is doing.

Note: this review is of the 2nd edition and does not necessarily reflect the 3rd. But, then again, every other review on this page prior to mine is about the 2nd edition as well!

Companion Website PROLOG Programming for Artificial Intelligence

If desired, all the programs can be downloaded in one archive file:

programs.zip

In order to open the zip file you will need Winzip (available from www.winzip.com).

Intelligent Reasoning by Example

by Peter Flach, then at Tilburg University, the Netherlands
John Wiley 1994, xvi + 240 pages, ISBN 0471 94152 2
Reprinted: December 1994, July 1998. Currently available via print-on-demand.

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater�s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


Copyright � 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.

FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.

This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...

You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site

Disclaimer:

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last modified: March 12, 2019