Prolog Modelled as Molecules

Appeared in Volume 10/2, May 1997

nsprakel@cs.ruu.nl
Niek Sprakel
1st October 1996

I was wondering if there is a system to model (and manipulate) Prolog programs as abstract molecule-like structures?

The RasMol program makes it possible to render 3D molecular structures in real-time, and it would be great to have a renderer of this kind for algorithmic structures.

Tracing a Prolog program would amount to traversing its 3D structure. Constructing a program would be a matter of combining such structures to make more complex tree structures.

spratt@eecs.ukans.edu
Lindsey Spratt
2nd October 1996

You might want to look at some graphical approaches to logic programming: SPARCL (my own work) [11, 12, 13], 'Predicates and Pixels' [1], CUBE [2], Pictorial Janus [3], VLP [4], VPP [5], Mpl [6] (which is actually a constraint logic language, based on CLP(R) [7]), and picture logic programming [8].

Other work in visualizing logic programs, which is distinct from visual programming languages, includes The Transparent Logic Machine (TLM) [9] and the AND/OR graph-based system of Senay and Lazzeri [10].

[1] 'Predicates and Pixels', G. Ringwood, New Generation Computing, 7, 1989, pp. 59-70.

[2] 'The CUBE Language', Marc A. Najork and Simon M. Kaplan. pp.218-224, Proc. 1991 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages, October 8-11, 1991, Kobe, Japan. IEEE Computer Society Press:Los Alamitos, CA. 1991.

[3] 'Complete Visualizations of Concurrent Programs and their Executions', Kenneth M. Kahn and Vijay A. Saraswat. pp.7-15, Proc. 1990 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages, October 4-6, 1990, Skokie, Illinois. IEEE Computer Society Press: Los Alamitos, CA. 1990.

[4] 'VLP: A Visual Logic Programming Language', Dider Ladret and Michel Rueher, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing (1991) 2, pp.163-188.

[5] 'Visual Logic Programming', L. F. Pau and H. Olason, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing (1991) 2, pp.3-15.

[6] 'Mpl - a graphical programming environment for matrix processing based on logic and constraints', Ricky Yeung, IEEE Workshop of Visual Languages, pp.137-143. IEEE Computer Society Press, October 1988.

[7] 'The CLP(R) Programmer's Manual', Version 1.2, Nevin C. Heintze, Joxan Jaffar, Spiro Michaylov, Peter J. Stuckey, and Roland H. C. Yap. This manual is distributed with version 1.2 of CLP(R), Joxan Jaffar at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. This manual is dated September 1992.

[8] 'Pictures Depicting Pictures: On the Specification of Visual Languages, Visual Grammars', Bernd Meyer. pp.41-47, Proc. 1992 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages September 15-18, 1992, Seattle, Washington. IEEE Computer Society Press:Los Alamitos, CA. 1992.

[9] 'The Transparent Prolog Machine (TPM): An Execution Model and Graphical Debugger for Logic programming', M. Eisenstadt and M. Brayshaw. Journal of Logic Programming, 5 (4), 1988.

[10] 'Graphical Representation of Logic Programs and Their Behavior', Hikmet Senay and Santos G. Lazzeri. pp.25-31, Proc. 1991 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages, October pp.8-11, 1991, Kobe, Japan. IEEE Computer Society Press:Los Alamitos, CA. 1991.

[11] 'A Visual Logic Programming Language Based on Sets and Partitioning Constraints', Lindsey L. Spratt and Allen L. Ambler. pp.204-208, Proc. 1993 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages, August 24-27, 1993. Bergen, Norway. IEEE Computer Society Press: Los Alamitos, CA.

[12] 'Using 3D tubes to solve the intersecting line representation problem', Lindsey L. Spratt and Allen L. Ambler. pp.254-263, Proc. 1994 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages, October 4-7, 1994. St. Louis, Missouri. IEEE Computer Society Press: Los Alamitos, CA.

[13] Seeing the Logic of Programming with Sets, Lindsey Spratt, PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Electricial Engineering and Computer Science, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA. 1996.