Adventure in Prolog / Dennis Merritt.

Getting Started -- Facts -- Simple Queries -- Compound Queries -- Rules -- Arithmetic -- Managing Data -- Recursion -- Data Structures -- Unification -- Lists -- Operators -- Cut -- Control Structures -- Natural Language -- Appendix -- Predicate Index -- Subject Index.

Not long ago Dennis Merritt wrote one of the best books that I know of about implementing expert systems in Prolog, and I was very glad he published it in our series. The only problem is there are still some unfortunate people around who do not know Prolog and are not sufficiently prepared either to read Merritt's book, or to use this extremely productive language, be it for knowledge-based work or even for everyday programming. Possibly this last statement may surprise you if you were under the impression that Prolog was an "artificial intelligence language" with very limited application potential. Please believe this editor's statement that quite the opposite is true: for at least four years, I have been using Prolog for every programming task in which I am given the option of choosing the language. Therefore, I 'am indeed happy that Dennis Merritt has written another good book on my language of choice, and that it meets the high standard he set with his prior book, Building Expert Systems in Prolog. All that remains for me to do is to wish you success and enjoyment when taking off on your Adventure in Prolog.

This book is aimed at the programmer who wishes to learn the advantages of programming in Prolog. It takes a pragmatic rather than theoretical approach to the language, using a full programming example rather than code fragments. The various features of Prolog, such as logic definitions, symbolic reasoning, database manipulation, natural language, I/O, and flow of control, are taught through the step-by-step development of an adventure game - an excellent and fun vehicle for showing Prolog's power. Through the exercises the reader applies the skill learned to the development of three other applications: an intelligent genealogical database, an expert system, and a business application. The unusual run-time behavior and variable binding of Prolog - the sources of its power - are fully explained through diagrams and traces so they can be effectively used by the programmer. It is recommended (but not required) that the reader use a Prolog interpreter to experiment with the language and application described in the book.