Cool App

[Anniepoo]

It would be very useful to have a cool application of Prolog, simple enough for a beginner to download and fiddle with, as a draw to bring in users.

I don't mean a 'killer app' - I'm talking about a simple application that makes it clear why Prolog's worth learning.

[Anniepoo]

nanisearch and the expert system tutorial from "Expert Systems in Prolog" by Dennis Merritt once fullfilled that role.

[Anniepoo]

eventual consistency is being really eventual . Wouter made this useful comment, it doesn't seem to be appearing:

Yes! Having a list of existing Cool Apps to point to certainly helps in disseminating the Prolog ecosystem. However, contemporary users do not download anything anymore. The Cool App has to be a directly Web App in order for it to draw in a large number of users. Every required user click divides the audience you reach in half.

[wouterbeek]

@Annie I had indeed typed the above quote but had then removed it since I thought it was maybe overstating things a little. However, there is certainly a large group for which the above is true. I believe that -- generally speaking -- something on top of SWISH is a better showcase than a downloadable .pl file, simply because of the instant interactivity aspect.

[Anniepoo]

Well, with the cool app/killer app distinction, I was trying to express that we need both 'a cool toy' - something would be Prolog programmers can download, fiddle with, and have an interesting application quickly, as well as a 'killer app' - something that makes J Random Engineer install SWI-Prolog to support KillerAppFoo which in turn solves problem X for J Random, and eventually leads to more people programming in Prolog and being convinced you can write something useful in the language.

[wouterbeek]

I've added these points to the SWI applications Wiki.