This file is http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/poplog.info.html
Note: "POPLOG" is a trade mark of the University of Sussex.
- Pop-11
(the core language of Poplog, derived from Pop2, the Edinburgh AI language developed in the 60s and 70s and extended at Sussex University in the 80s and 90s, including a rich interface to the X window system and a powerful Object Oriented programming extension, Objectclass, developed by Steve Leach now a standard part of the language (comparable to CLOS as an extension of LISP).)- Prolog
Standard prolog with the "Edinburgh" syntax.- Common Lisp
(Compatible with most of CLTL2 (Common Lisp the language, 2nd Edition) by G.L. Steele
For further information on compatibility, see http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/doc/lisphelp/bugs
or
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/doc/lisphelp/bugs- Standard ML
A powerful, strongly typed, polymorphic, functional language.
There is also a partial
implementation of Scheme in Poplog available at the
FreePoplog Site
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html
This was developed by
Robin Popplestone, at
the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.
Alas Robin died in 2004. See
http://www.cs.umass.edu/csinfo/announce/robinpopplestone.html
http://www.cs.umass.edu/csinfo/announce/popplestone_endowment.html
http://www.cs.umass.edu/csinfo/announce/popplestonefellow2006.html
THE NEXT TWO NO LONGER WORK:http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/Popplestone/home.html
http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/remembrance.html
Poplog provides support for multi-paradigm software development in a rapid prototyping environment, because of the use of (fast) incremental compilers for all the languages.
In Poplog, all the above languages compile to a common virtual machine, which is then compiled (incrementally) to the current host machine language. Users can add new languages or extend the existing languages because the compiler development tools are made available (in the form of Pop-11 procedures, as explained in the Primer HTML or PDF version).
Poplog also includes a lot of X related facilities, an integrated multi-window programmable text editor (VED), and a host of teaching material and libraries provided in source. The system was developed mainly at Sussex University, but also at Integral Solutions Ltd (ISL) between 1988 and 1998. ISL was bought by SPSS (who sell the Clementine data-mining system originally developed in Poplog by ISL).
There are also various library extensions including
Poplog grew out of the Pop-11 language produced at Sussex University building on the many excellent ideas in the Pop2 language, originally developed by Robin Popplestone (see below) and others at Edinburgh University in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
At Sussex Pop-11 was implemented (mainly by Steve Hardy) to run on a PDP11/40 computer running Unix, round about 1976. It was later ported to a VAX running VMS, and John Gibson was the main architect thereafter. Around 1981-2 Chris Mellish implemented a version of Prolog in Pop-11, and the combined system was then called Poplog. A few years later a "toy" Lisp system was added by Jonathan Cunningham, and after that a full Common Lisp was implemented by John Williams, with supporting changes to the Poplog virtual machine produced by John Gibson. Later Robert Duncan and Simon Nichols added an implementation of Standard ML.
One of the key features originally in Pop-11 and later in Poplog was support for e-learning. An overview of the philosophy and history of some of the features developed from 1976 at Sussex University can be found here. A central theme in all the computer-based learning techniques developed in Pop-11 and Poplog was always leaving the learner in total control.
Poplog was originally sold to commercial and academic users (at very different prices!) by Sussex University (starting around 1982), when it contained only Pop-11 and Prolog (hence the name.)
SDL (Systems Designers Ltd) took over marketing in 1983 (and had a Poplog stand at IJCAI83 in Karlsruhe). Later, following a merger, SDL grew into SD-Scicon, one of the largest software companies in the UK, which later changed its name to SD, and then became EDS
In 1989 SD decided to pull out of the AI tools market and a small group of people in the company (about 6) who had been associated with Poplog bought out the Poplog business (and also the SD-prolog business) and started ISL. At first their business was mainly selling and supporting Poplog (while Sussex University remained closely involved in development). They also provided AI services, developed various kinds of AI software.
During the 1990s ISL developed and diversified, including producing the prize winning Clementine Data Mining System, which was originally implemented mainly in Pop-11, making considerable use of Pop-11 (as did other systems produced by clients of ISL, e.g. COGSYS), and some products of Praxis.
In December 1998 SPSS bought ISL (a friendly takeover) and following that, discussions began with Sussex regarding the future of Poplog. This eventually led to the Free Poplog site.
There is a smaller out of date free version of Poplog (Version 15.01),
which apparently still works on SUSE Linux, though not on other recent
versions of Linux. It is available by ftp from Sussex University in the
Sussex Linux Poplog distribution directory:
ftp://ftp.cogs.susx.ac.uk/pub/poplog/poplog15.0
This old version has some restrictions: it is memory-limited and you
cannot create saved images. But most of the teaching material in
older books on pop-11 can be used on it, though not the newer facilities
at the Birmingham Poplog ftp site.
Started 15 Feb 2007 here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/history/
Any contributions to that directory gratefully received.
Early development of the POP languageand
Now available here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/history/popplestone/pop_development.html
Functional and Interactive Computer Language Design
Now available here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/history/popplestone/functional.html
There is a Poplog/Pop-11 FAQ and a port of the Babylon AI development environment to Poplog Common Lisp.
Steve Leach
The news group is gatewayed to an email list currently maintained at the University of Birmingham. If you wish to join the pop-forum email list, write to A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk
The directory contains code and documentation (mainly Pop-11) for use with Poplog developed at Birmingham (some of it extending work done at Sussex).
Detailed system documentation for Poplog, Pop-11 and the other Poplog languages (Prolog, Common Lisp, and Standard ML) can be found in the doc/ subdirectory.
Examples of displays produced by the
"RCLIB" (relative coordinates) Graphic Library can be
found in
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/figs/rclib/
An overview (plain text) file is here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/rclib/help/rclib
The HTML version can be fetched in a tar file and unpacked for local
use:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/pophtmlprimer.tar.gz
(The graphical symbols won't work, but they are inessential.)
It is available online (though without any of the diagrams alas) at
Last updated: 6 Jul 2009; 3 Dec 2010; 17 Dec 2019