Poplog

Poplog

Original author(s)	Robin Popplestone,Steve Hardy, Chris Mellish, Aaron Sloman, John Williams, Robert Duncan, Simon Nichols, John Gibson
Developer(s)	University of Sussex Systems Designers Ltd. Integral Solutions Ltd. University of Birmingham
Initial release	1982(1982)
Stable release	16 / January 2020(2020-01)
Repository	getpoplog.github.io
Written in	POP-11
Operating system	Cross-platform:VMS,Unix,Linux,Mac OS X,Windows
Platform	VAX,SPARC,IA-32,PowerPC,x86-64
Size	17+ MB
Available in	English
Type	IDE
License	Proprietary(1982–1999) Open-source(1999–present):MIT–XFree86
Website	www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/poplog.info.html

Poplogis areflective,incrementally compiledsoftware developmentcomputer programmingintegrated development environmentandsystem platformfor theprogramming languagesPOP-11,Common Lisp,Prolog,andStandard ML.It was created originally in theUnited Kingdomfor teaching and research inartificial intelligence,at theUniversity of Sussex,and later marketed as a commercial package for software development, teaching, and research. It was one of the initiatives supported for a time by the UK government-fundedAlvey Programme.

It was licensed originally from 1982 to 1999, asproprietary software,then released in 1999 asopen-source software,under a mix ofMITand thenXFree86licenses.

History

After anincremental compilerforProloghad been added to an implementation ofPOP-11,the name POPLOG was adopted, to reflect that the expanded system supported programming in both languages. The name was retained, as a trade mark of theUniversity of Sussex,when the system was later (mid 1980s) extended with incremental compilers forCommon LispandStandard MLbased on a set of tools for implementing new languages in the Poplog Virtual Machine.The user-accessible incremental-compiler tools that allow compilers for all these languages to be added also allow extensions to be made within a language to provide new abilities that cannot be added via standard macros that merely allow new text to be equivalent to a longer portion of old text.

For some time after 1983, Poplog was sold and supported internationally as a commercial product, on behalf of the University of Sussex by Systems Designers Ltd (SDL), whose name changed as ownership changed. The main development work continued to be done by a small team at Sussex University until 1998, while marketing, sales, and support (except for UK academic users, who dealt directly with the Sussex team) was done by SDL and its successors (SD, then SD-Scicon thenElectronic Data Systems(EDS)) until 1991. At that time a management buy-out produced a spin-off company Integral Solutions Ltd (ISL), to sell and support Poplog in collaboration with Sussex University, who retained the rights to the name 'Poplog' and were responsible for the core software development while it was a commercial product. In 1992 ISL and Sussex University won a "Smart Award" in recognition of Poplog sales worth $5M. ISL and its clients used Poplog for many development projects, especially ISL's data-mining system Clementine, mostly implemented in POP-11, using powerful graphical tools implemented also in POP-11 running on theX Window System.Clementine was so successful that in 1998 ISL was bought bySPSS Incwho had been selling the statistics and data-mining packageSPSSfor which they needed a better graphical interface suited to expert and non-expert users. SPSS did not wish to sell and support Poplog as such, so Poplog then became available as a freeopen sourcesoftware package,hosted at theUniversity of Birmingham,which had also been involved in development after 1991. LaterIBMbought SPSS and Clementine is now marketed and supported asSPSS Modeler.

Supported languages

Poplog's core language isPOP-11.It is used to implement the other languages, all of themincrementally compiled,with an integrated common editor. In the Linux/Unix versions, POP-11 provides support for 2-D graphics viaX.

Poplog supports incrementally compiled versions ofCommon Lisp,POP-11,Prolog,andStandard ML.A separate package implemented byRobin Popplestonesupports a version ofScheme.

Poplog has been used both for academic research and teaching in artificial intelligence and also to develop several commercial products, apart from Clementine. In 1992, ISL and Sussex University won an ICP Million Dollar award in recognition of Poplog exceeding sales of US$5 million.

Platforms

POP-11 was at first implemented on aDECPDP-11computer in 1976, and was ported toVAX/VMSin 1980. It became Poplog around 1982. Although the first commercial sales were for VAX/VMS, from the mid-1980s, the main Poplog development work was done onSunSPARCcomputers runningSolaris,although several different versions were sold, including versions forHP-UXand a64-bitversion of Poplog forDEC AlpharunningDigital UNIX.After about 1999, when Poplog became available as free, open source, most development work was done on the Linux version, including porting to 64-bit Linux. A partial port toMac OS XonPowerPCwas done in 2005.

There is a version forWindows,originally developed to support Clementine, but the Unix/Linux graphical subsystem does not work on Windows Poplog. The Windows version of Clementine depended on a commercial package that supportedXfunctionality on Windows.

There is also anopen sourceprojectwhich aimed to produce a more platform neutral version of Poplog, including Windows. The most recent development by this project includes a web server component for integrating into Poplog applications, and the OpenPoplog Widget Collection for supporting client user interfaces running in a web browser. A more narrowly focused open source Poplog project, restricted to the 64-bit AMD64/X86-64 architecture was set up on GitHub by Waldek Hebisch:[1].This is now the basis of Poplog Version 16 hosted at the University of Birmingham[2].

Additional information about the history and features of Poplog can be found in the entries forPOP-2andPOP-11.The chief architect of Poplog, responsible for many innovations related to making an incrementally compiled system portable, and providing support for a collection of languages was John Gibson, at Sussex University, though the earliest work was done by Steve Hardy. Chris Mellish helped with the initial Prolog implementation in POP-11. John Williams, working under supervision of Jonathan Cunningham implemented the Common Lisp subsystem. Robert Duncan and Simon Nichols added Standard ML. Between about 1980 and 1991, the project was managed byAaron Sloman,until he went to theUniversity of Birmingham,though he continued to collaborate with Sussex and ISL on Poplog development after that. Since 1999, he has been responsible for the main Poplog web site, as well as some of the extensions to be found there, listed under POP-11.

Implementation

The Prolog subset of Poplog is implemented using the extendableincremental compilerofPOP-11,the core language of Poplog, which is a general purpose Lisp-like language with a more conventional syntax. The implementation required the Poplog Virtual Machine to be extended to provide support for Prologcontinuations,Prolog variables, the Prologtrail(recording undoable variable bindings), and Prolog terms. The implementation was constrained by the need to allow data-structures to be shared with the other Poplog languages, especiallyPOP-11andCommon Lisp,thereby providing support for a mixture of programming styles.

External links

• Official website,Free Poplog Portal
• GetPoplogonGitHub
• The online Poplog Eliza
• Photo of ICP award Plaque
• Details also available here:[3]