Interactive Problem Solving in Prolog

ECLiPSe is a Prolog-based programming system, aimed at the development and deployment of constraint programming applications. It is also used for teaching most aspects of combinatorial problem solving, e.g. problem modelling, constraint programming, mathematical programming, and search techniques. It uses an extended Prolog as its high-level modelling and control language, complemented by several constraint solver libraries, interfaces to third-party solvers, an integrated de...

We present and analyze the employment of the Diproche system, a natural language proof checker, within a one-semester mathematics beginners lecture with 228 participants. The system is used to check the students' solution attempts to proving exercises in Boolean set theory and elementary number theory and to give them immediate feedback. The benefits of the employment of the system are assessed via a questionnaire at the end of the semester and via analyzing the solution atte...

SWI-Prolog is neither a commercial Prolog system nor a purely academic enterprise, but increasingly a community project. The core system has been shaped to its current form while being used as a tool for building research prototypes, primarily for \textit{knowledge-intensive} and \textit{interactive} systems. Community contributions have added several interfaces and the constraint (CLP) libraries. Commercial involvement has created the initial garbage collector, added several...

The programming language Prolog makes declarative programming possible, at least to a substantial extent. Programs may be written and reasoned about in terms of their declarative semantics. All the advantages of declarative programming are however lost when it comes to program debugging. This is because the Prolog debugger is based solely on the operational semantics. Declarative methods of diagnosis (i.e. locating errors in programs) exist, but are neglected. This paper disc...

We report on several scenarios of using automated theorem proving software in university education. In particular, we focus on using the Theorema system in a software-enhanced logic-course for students in computer science or artificial intelligence. The purpose of using logic-software in our teaching is not to teach students the proper use of a particular piece of software. In contrast, we try to employ certain software in order to spark students' motivation and to support th...

We have developed a Prolog visualization system that is intended to support Prolog programming education. The system uses Logichart diagrams to visualize Prolog programs. The Logichart diagram is designed to visualize the Prolog execution flow intelligibly and to enable users to easily correlate the Prolog clauses with its parts. The system has the following functions. (1) It visually traces Prolog execution (goal calling, success, and failure) on the Logichart diagram. (2) D...

Aiming to offer a framework for blended learning to the teaching of proof theory, the present paper describes an interactive tutorial, called \textsc{TryLogic}, teaching how to solve logical conjectures either by proofs or refutations. The paper also describes the integration of our infrastructure with the Virtual Learning Environment \texttt{Moodle} through the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability specification, and evaluates the tool we have developed.

Broad application of answer set programming (ASP) for declarative problem solving requires the development of tools supporting the coding process. Program debugging is one of the crucial activities within this process. Recently suggested ASP debugging approaches allow efficient computation of possible explanations of a fault. However, even for a small program a debugger might return a large number of possible explanations and selection of the correct one must be done manually...

This volume contains the papers presented at WLPE 2007: the 17th Workshop on Logic-based Methods in Programming Environments on 13th September, 2007 in Porto, Portugal. It was held as a satellite workshop of ICLP 2007, the 23th International Conference on Logic Programming.

Logic is a foundation for many modern areas of computer science. In artificial intelligence, as a basis of database query languages, as well as in formal software and hardware verification --- modelling scenarios using logical formalisms and inferring new knowledge are important skills for going-to-be computer scientists. The Iltis project aims at providing a web-based, interactive system that supports teaching logical methods. In particular the system shall (a) support to le...