Convert prolog application to a JVM based language? [closed]

Question

I have a legacy ISO prolog application of medium size that I would like to move to a JVM based language. The application is a command line tool that parses text files, does some evaluation/transformations and then export a text based file.

My team develops mainly in Java so we have a lot of existing java competence and reusable components. Prolog competence is however very low.

I don't expect there to be a tool that takes prolog source code and transform it to some other language. But I'm trying to understand what would be the easiest solution. Starting from scratch in Java or using a more functional language like Clojure?

Answer 1

But I'm trying to understand what would be the easiest solution.

Some implementations of Prolog run on the JVM platform. Wikipedia lists 5 of them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Prolog_implementations. So maybe the easiest solution is train someone in your team in Prolog, and just port the application to a JVM Prolog implementation. (Which might be a simple thing ...)

Someone on your team is likely to need Prolog skills anyway to successfully translate Prolog to some other language.

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However, I recognize that there could be other reasons to translate; e.g. if the existing Prolog code needs a major overhaul anyway.

Answer 2

That is mainly depending on your team's skill. You mentioned that your team has a pretty good Java skills; why not starting with that?

If they don't know LISP, they will spent a lot of time learning it from the scratch. Learning LISP is quite an investment but it is definitely pays in the end.

Although Clojure is going to help you a lot in your case (because of data flow and data transformation), I would say that Java is a better bet since your team is competent with it.