Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence

This is not a good first book on Prolog. If you are new to Prolog and Logic Programming, you should read 'Art of Prolog' first.

Prolog is quite different from other languages, and you'll need some time to get it. This book doesn't give you that time: after briefly introducing the basic concepts, Bratko dives at breakneck speed into recursion and list processing.

Don't get me wrong, this is a magnificent book on how to do AI with Prolog, but it shouldn't be your first Prolog book. It's an excellent second book.


An excellent introduction to Prolog and concepts in AI   March 6, 2002
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Professor Bratko has done a tremendous job of putting all the fundamental concepts of Prolog and its applications in various areas of AI. Although this book is focused on Prolog, the concepts that he has discussed are so fundamental that they can be implemented in other languages like Java as well.

I recommend this book to everyone who wants to learn Prolog. I would also recommend the readers to use a Prolog system to work out the examples and exercises as s/he goes through every chapter. A DEC10 Prolog system (like SICStus Prolog) would probably be the best companion for this book.


I thought the book could be better   December 28, 2001
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

I find the book does not adequetly explain the more complex code examples. First of all the code is not adequetly commented. Secondly, it does not explain the code well for programmers. First when introducing a program like in the expert systems shell chapter it should first define an interface for the program, and explain each goal listed. It should adequetly explain what each goal and clause should hope to achieve. Also, for the more complicated programs it should draw some type of diagram, maybe a flow chart or something that explains the concepts involved. It leaves too much figuring out and guessing for the reader. It is not very user-friendly!
On the positive side, it does an adequate job of explaining concepts when complex code is not involved. I found that I could follow along on even the more advanced chapters mostly everything at least until code was suddenly introduced. Then it became a guessing game as to what it was trying to do.
The author does not seem to realize that it is more difficult to try to understand somebody else's program than it is to write your own program from scratch. As a consequence the reader wastes a lot of time trying to guess what his program is doing.
Note: this review is of the 2nd edition and does not necessarily reflect the 3rd. But, then again, every other review on this page prior to mine is about the 2nd edition as well!