Invited Paper: Merging Functional with Relational Programming in a Reduction Setting (at LICS 1986)

Authors: John A. Robinson

Abstract

Functional Programming - as in Pure LISP or Turner's SASL - and first-order Relational Programming - as in Pure PROLOG - can be combined in a homogenous generalized Logic Programming System based on a suitably enriched concept of reduction. Within such a system, Horn-clause resolution appears as a small number of equivalence-preserving rewrite rules designed to transfrom set abstractions into explicit set descriptions. Work by Andrews, Huet, and Jensen and Pietrzykowski on higher-order unification and resolution suggests that such a system might be based on a Horn-clause version of the Church-Henken ω-order predicate calculus. However, there may be intrinsic complexity limitations which prevent the system from being practically useful.

BibTeX

  @InProceedings{Robinson-MergingFunctionalwi,
    author = 	 {John A. Robinson},
    title = 	 {Merging Functional with Relational Programming in a Reduction Setting},
    booktitle =  {Proceedings of the First Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 1986)},
    year =	 {1986},
    month =	 {June}, 
    pages =      {2--2},
    location =   {Cambridge, MA, USA}, 
    note =       {Invited Talk},
    publisher =	 {IEEE Computer Society Press}
  }