[pypy-dev] logic/oz sprint report

[Nicolas Chauvat]

Hello,

You will find the sprint report at:

http://codespeak.net/pypy/extradoc/sprintinfo/louvain-la-neuve-2006/report.txt

or below:

Sprint Report Louvain-La-Neuve 6-10/3/2006
==========================================

Achievements
------------

The main achievements of the sprint are :

  * wrapper of GECODE constraint-solving library

  * workshop about functionnalities of the PyPy/Python and Oz
  languages

  * microthreads and dataflow variables in Logic ObjectSpace

  * draft of a standard mechanism to express search problems in Python

Sprint participants
-------------------

Ludovic Aubry, Aurélien Campéas, Nicolas Chauvat, Alexandre Fayolle,
Anders Lehmann, Grégoire Dooms, Samuele Pedroni, Carl Friedrich Bolz,
Raphaël Collet.

Workshop participants
---------------------

Sprinters + Roel Wuyts, Peter Van Roy, Kevin Glynn, Luis Quesada,
Boris Mejias, Jean-Noël Monette, Pierre Schaus

Before workshop
---------------

Monday and Tuesday where spent sharing information about what had been
implemented, discussing what could be implemented and looking at
existing implementations. This is what the planning was like:

* identify parts of the current logic module that can be usefully
implemented
  in RPython

* take a look at existing logic programming software and think about
integration 
  (pychinko_ and Rete_ algorithm or CWM_ for forward-chaining, GECODE_
  library for constraint-solving, tableau, pylog_ for
  backward-chaining, Python Cookbook recipes, etc.)

* existing Python syntax/new syntax: look at and update existing
document in pypy's svn

* consistency for multi-paradigm programming languages (especially
  Python). Oz_ has consistent semantics and offers many different
  programming paradigms (object, functionnal, constraint, distributed,
  secure, dataflow, etc.)

References that we looked at are:

* the Rete_ algorithm, an efficient algorithm_ for rule-based systems

* CWM_, a rule-based system written in Python by Tim Berners-Lee

* pychinko_, a Python implementation of RETE

* pylog_, an implementation of prolog in python that compiles prolog
  source code to Python functions

* a Python cookbook recipe_ that lets one add arbitrary infix binary
operators

* a simple Prolog implementation using continuations_ to implement
backtracking search

* `linear programming`_ with nice syntactic sugar via operator
overloading

* candygram_, erlang style message-based communication and concurrency
in Python

* discussing extending python with `futures/promises`_

* two_ python recipes_ that analyse and transform the bytecode of a
  function to interpret it as a set of facts and rules

.. _GECODE: http://www.gecode.org/
.. _Rete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete
.. _algorithm: http://drools.org/Rete 
.. _CWM: http://infomesh.net/2001/cwm/
.. _pychinko: http://www.mindswap.org/~katz/pychinko/ 
.. _pylog: http://christophe.delord.free.fr/en/pylog/
.. _recipe:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/384122
.. _continuations:
http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/python/continuations.html
.. _`linear programming`:
http://www.jeannot.org/~js/code/index.en.html
.. _candygram: http://candygram.sourceforge.net/
.. _`futures/promises`:
http://lists.logilab.org/pipermail/python-logic/2005-August/000112.html
.. _two:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/360698
.. _recipes:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/303057
.. _Oz: http://www.mozart-oz.org/

Workshop
--------

* presentation of pypy architecture

* presentation of current implementation of a constraint store in
python

* presentation of soul/smalltalk language symbiosis

* presentation of dataflow paradigm and basic mechanisms

After the workshop
------------------

Samuele and Carl implemented a logic object space with microthreads
and logic variables. See dist/pypy/objspace/logic.py

Nicolas, Raphaël and Aurélien discussed a design for a generic
computation space similar to Oz's object space that could run searches
expressed as a constraint problem or as a rule-set.

Ludovic, Alexandre and Grégoire wrapped the GECODE library. See
dist/pypy/lib/logic/gecode_wrapper

Alexandre and Anders used PyPy to compile the constraints before
running the search and gained a nice speedup.

-- 
Nicolas Chauvat

logilab.fr - services en informatique avancée et gestion de connaissances