Simply Logical

by Peter Flach

An introduction to Prolog programming for artificial intelligence covering both basic and advanced AI material. A unique advantage to this work is the combination of AI, Prolog and Logic. Each technique is accompanied by a program implementing it. Seeks to simplify the basic concepts of logic programming. Contains exercises and authentic examples to help facilitate the understanding of difficult concepts.

Genres: Logic, Computer Science

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1994

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite deep - the other, overgrown and overshadowed half of AI. Part II is a very nice introduction to classical search, though in Prolog, which will be enough to scare away most readers.

Computational logic is the result of say half a dozen geniuses seizing a field from the philosophers and shaking remarkable things out of it.* It is also not very relevant for 90% of AI researchers today, though the extremely prolific and lively Programming Language Theory and theorem-provers people have inherited some of it and shake out remarkable things. As such, maybe most of this is unlikely to help you.

The site they built around this book makes Prolog as easy as as it's going to get.

Free and fully executable here.

* Putnam and Robinson were philosophers, and the point stands.

[Mike Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. After reading this I feel like I have a much better understanding of Prolog and clausal logic along with tree structure and resolution algorithms. The only part that was not really great was chapter 9 which seemed more like an overview of active research than a teaching of concepts. This would be an excellent second book on Prolog.

[Dmitry Bezverkhiy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect introduction to Logical Programming and reasoning.