Re: killer apps

From: Manuel Chakravarty <chak_at_greyarea.is.tsukuba.ac.jp>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 15:52:50 +0900

John wrote

> Let me suggest 3 potential killer apps. I think a good FLP language would
> have significant advantages over more conventional languages for these
> applications.
>
> 1. Constraints.
> [...]
> 2. Machine learning.
> [...]
> 3. Knowledge-based Internet applications.
> [...]

re 1: I agree on the constraints applications, i.e., FLP as the better
LP.

re 2: Although, I am (very) far from being an expert in machine
learning, I think, a large number (if not most) of the big
applications there are written in Lisp and not in an LP language. Of
course, you can argue that FLP also generalizes FP, but I am not sure
if that really is much of an advantage for machine learning. The
reason is that if you want to be successful in machine learning you
better avoid (exhaustive) search, instead many heuristics and good
classification routines (like Quinlan's C4.5) are important.

re 3: I don't see the advantage of FLP over FP here (the examples you
gave are very much database-oriented, so maybe SQL is the
canditate...)

Sorry for being pessimistic, but, I think, we have to be very
self-critical if we want to convince `outsiders'.

Manuel
Received on Do Jul 10 1997 - 09:53:00 CEST