Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cadre.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cadre!geb
From: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: net.lang.prolog
Subject: prolog questions
Message-ID: <496@cadre.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 10:15:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: cadre.496
Posted: Wed Aug 21 10:15:10 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 17:49:52 EDT
Reply-To: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., University of Pittsburgh
Lines: 31

I am interested in prolog, but cursory examination of the relevant
literature and a hour or two playing with the NSW version makes me
wonder if it is worth investing a lot of time.  In order to be
useful to me, I must be able to do two things, which are not
readily apparent how to do.  This is likely because I am unfamiliar
with non-procedural style.  So if there are any prolog wizards,
can prolog be made to:

1) Given a predicate whose premise is not known, and there are no
predicates whose action yields the premise, is there a general
way of making prolog ask the user for the data?  Or does each
askable premise have to have a predicate constructed for it to
make the program ask?

2) Can prolog deal with certainty factors?  I mean, if all you
want to do is build another macsyma, this doesn't come up, but
prolog promoters are talking about expert systems to do medical
diagnosis, no less, and without ability to handle uncertainty,
it would be pretty useless for this task.  We don't deal in
yes/no binary questions.  If anyone can refer me to any articles
dealing with this issue in prolog, I would be grateful.

Thanks 

Gordon Banks
geb@cadre.arpa
or {akgua,ihnp4,vax135}!cadre!geb