Logic Production Systems: A new mixed logic/imperative programming language • Hacker News Board

Re: Logic Production Systems: A new mixed logic/imperative programming language

#31

Post by SomeHacker44 » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

rl3 wrote: post #11

cpdt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could imagine RTS style games or mods where you not only have to scavenge for resources, you also program your bots to do your bidding, like Dwarf Fortress with programmable drones instead of independently-minded Dwarves. Sounds sort of like Screeps [1]. It's an MMO game where you write scripts in JS to control different robots (so, not logic programming, but still pretty fun with lots of depth). Parts of it are…

The concept underlying Screeps basically amounts to my dream RTS. While I haven't played it yet, the only thing that worries me is the tick rate. The trailer videos all use the history replay feature so as to appear real-time, when in actuality you're talking a simulation tick rate of anywhere from 1hz (private server) to something like 0.25-0.5hz on regular/MMO servers. A normal RTS would probably sim in excess of 2…

Screeps is a lot of fun. (I've published my whole code on GitHub when I retired after about four months.) The tick rate on the main server is more than adequate. You can run your own server locally to test things at a faster tick rate.

Re: Logic Production Systems: A new mixed logic/imperative programming language

#32

Post by fspeech » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

Prof. Kowalski has a draft version of his book available on his website, which should provide background information on LPS:

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rak/papers/newbook.pdf

Computational Logic and Human Thinking: How to be Artificially Intelligent

"This earlier draft of a book of the same title, published in July 2011 by Cambridge University Press, presents the principles of Computational Logic, so that they can be applied in everyday life. I have written the main part of the book informally, both to reach a wider audience and to argue more convincingly that Computational Logic is useful for human thinking."

Re: Logic Production Systems: A new mixed logic/imperative programming language

#33

Post by contingencies » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 10:45 PM UTC

ekidd wrote: post #16

notthemessiah wrote: post #4

I recall trying a few mods that made Kerbal Space Program programmable so you can automate your rocket (Some have used it to make SpaceX-style reusable boosters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqqQy8cIVFY ), and mods that provided a domain-specific language were more convenient than mods that used an existing conventional programming language. However the kOS language was still ultimately an imperative script, and t…

I've actually been really impressed by Shenzhen I/O ( http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/ ), which is a game where you have to program microcontrollers to build weird products. The built-in programming language is an ultra-simple assembly language, with either one or two registers, and about a dozen operations. Program length is limited to about 10 or 15 statements. There are external ROM and RAM modules which st…

For an alternative introduction see my guide Junior Embedded Engineer's Manual at http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=780361...

Re: Logic Production Systems: A new mixed logic/imperative programming language

#34

Post by contingencies » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 11:23 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #12

"Domain specific causal theory" means "program you wrote", right? Your if-then statements?

At http://blog.ruleml.org/post/32629706-the-sad-state-concernin... Kowalski summarizes his theory of the classification of rules (within production logic systems) in to a triple typology, and suggests that the last of these types, which he terms reactive rules, are more fundamental, and "the driving force of life". These are rules which define a subsequent action or state from current conditions, ie. "if hungry then eat".

To fully grasp the idea it is important to understand the different natures of logic programming versus imperative/procedural programming... there is not really an if-then-else-style (ie. control flow oriented) program state. Rather, the programmer tends to throw a bunch of formal rules at a 'solver' which simply determines the result.

Re: Logic Production Systems: A new mixed logic/imperative programming language

#35

Post by trapperkeeper79 » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 2:44 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #26

PaulHoule wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today we have production rules systems such as iLog and Drools which are head and shoulders better than OPS5 and other "expert system shells" from the golden age of A.I. These are in widespread use for a few applications. Probably every bank has at least one iLog instance running for enforcing business rules. Another one is "complex event processing", where a RETE engine makes it easy to aggregate small events into l…

I'm in complete agreement. I didn't mean to give off the idea that you couldn't use Expert Systems anymore, merely that the research and publishing interest died. Implementations have definitely improved. Supposedly, Charles Forgy has continued researching and implementing improvements to his original RETE algorithm, but both the research and implementations are entirely proprietary and mostly inaccessible. I likewis…

Getting RETE right isn't trivial. I tried looking into the fundamentals a few months ago, and was very unsatisfied - it felt like people explaining it knew parts of it but not the whole thing. I guess it is good that we have some open source implementations that can be reverse engineered by someone motivated enough.