ASPARAGUS - the Dagstuhl Initiative
Christian Anger1,
Torsten Schaub1,
Miroslaw Truszczynski2
1Institut fur Informatik -- Universitat Potsdam
2Department of Computer Science -- University of Kentucky
Editor: Enrico Pontelli
The PDF-version of this article can be found here.
Answer-set programming (ASP) emerged in the late 90s as a new
logic programming paradigm, having its roots in non-monotonic
reasoning, deductive databases and logic programming with negation as
failure. Since its inception, it has been regarded as the computational
embodiment of non-monotonic reasoning and a primary candidate for an
effective knowledge representation tool. This view has been
boosted by the emergence of highly efficient solvers for ASP, among
them smodels and dlv.
In September 2002, participants of the Dagstuhl Seminar on
``Non-monotonic Reasoning, Answer Set Programming and Constraints''
agreed that in order to foster further development of ASP, it is
important to establish an infrastructure
for benchmarking ASP solvers. The result is the Asparagus
System, maintained at the University of Potsdam.
The principal goals of this benchmarking system are to provide an
infrastructure for accumulating challenging benchmarks, and to
facilitate executing ASP solvers under the same conditions,
guaranteeing reproducible and reliable performance results. The system
is based on a two server architecture. A public server is responsible
for accessing the results of the benchmarks via the Internet, for
uploading new benchmarks and servers, as well as providing a growing
body of interesting benchmarking problems. A second machine is used to
actually run the benchmarks in a clean, undisturbed environment.
Requested runs of benchmarks are automatically executed within time and
memory limits.
Though the system allows for continuous benchmarking, a comprehensive
competition of the latest versions of ASP solvers is scheduled for late
autumn. Potential contestants are encouraged to join in this event.
More information and the Asparagus System itself can be found at
For further questions etc., please send an email to
asparagus@cs.uni-potsdam.de
Mailing lists for system developers and other users are also available.