Applications

Logic Programming has many useful applications in Computing. Some of these are outlined in the following pages.

Expert Systems - 1

An expert system is a computer program that contains the knowledge of one or more human experts in a specific field. Originally developed during the 1960s and 1970s, see history, their use has now become restricted.

The most common form of expert system is a program made up of rules that analyze information about a specific class of problems and provide suggestions of appropriate courses of action. This information is provided via the expert system itself, and also through questions posed to a user in order to determine a solution.

For example, consider an expert system used to determine which University a student should go to:

Suitable questions may include:

Under which academic discipline do you wish to study?
Do you want to study a specific course?
Do you prefer cities to towns?
Do you like the countryside?

All of these questions would give an expert system parameters to which it could filter out inappropriate Universities. For example, if a student wanted to study Computing then it would filter out all Universities that didn't offer Computing. If a student wanted to live in a city, it would filter out all town and countryside Universities.