Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: Prolog standard (was: Panel Discussion)
Message-ID: <297@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 88 07:07:57 GMT
References: <2546@mandrill.CWRU.Edu> <528@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@quintus.UUCP
Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 49

In article <528@aiva.ed.ac.uk> jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton,E26 SB x206E,,2295119) writes:
>In article <2546@mandrill.CWRU.Edu> leon@alpha.ces.cwru.edu () writes:
>] Topic: A Standard for Prolog: The Current Reality
>] Speakers:
>]     Dr P. Deransart, INRIA, France
>]     Dr R. O'Keefe, Quintus Computer Systems, USA
>]     A. Turk, Applied Logic Systems, USA
>]     Dr D.S. Warren, SUNY-Stonybrook, USA
>
>Note that most speakers are listed as USA, but the US is hardly
>participating in the ISO standards work at all.  Since many people
>in the US may not like the result, they may end up regretting this.
>Can anyone say why almost no one in the US seems interested in
>working on the standard?  Are the companies that sell Prolog systems
>hoping they can just ignore the standard?

To answer the last question first, it is not the companies which sell
Prolog systems which decided not to participate.  In order to be "on"
an ISO panel, you have to have been sent by your national standards
organisation.  For Quintus, say, to have a representative on the ISO
committee would mean that we would have to get ANSI to agree that it
was a good idea to have ANSI participation.  They never asked _us_.
(Anyone know who they _did_ ask?)  Apparently, ANSI think that a Lisp
standard and a Scheme standard are enough.  

The list as quoted is missing one member:  Chris Moss.
I've just come back from ICLP '88, so I can give you one-line
summaries of what was said:

Moss:		I have resigned from the committee and don't like
		what they are doing.

Deransart:	A standard should be based on a formal specification
		and here's what ours looks like (faint blue slides).

Me:		There should be a standard but the BSI work is not good.

Turk:		We Prolog vendors need a standard.

Warren:		A standard is not needed.

To the extent that there was a consensus (and the exchanges were frank,
bordering on direct) it was that a standard would be a Good Thing, and
that a voluntary specification produced by people who knew what they
were doing might be a good idea.

Chris Moss having resigned from the committee, my one-way wager of $100
becomes void.  I don't imagine that anyone else is likely to do better
than he was: the requirements were flawed.