Scryer Prolog at FOSDEM 2025

[triska]

Dear all,

today I came across one of the talk announcements at FOSDEM 2025, a developer conference with thousands of attendees which takes place in Brussels in Febrary 2025:

Constraint Logic Programming From The Perspective of Annotations by Jonathan McHugh.

To the best of my knowledge, Scryer Prolog is now mentioned for the first time in the context of this conference.

Another talk I can highly recommend is the one on libobscura:

libobscura: Cameras are STILL difficult by dcz.

DorotaC already gave a very interesting talk about her library the day before yesterday, available from: https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-libobscura-cameras-are-difficult

I found especially interesting that she mentions the use of Prolog as a scripting language, starting it 22:12. Quoting from the talk:

"What kind of a language would I use? Any guesses? ... I wanted to try with Prolog. And why did I try with Prolog? [audience laughter] That's the thing: I want everything to be declarative, I really like declarative things. So, remember all those different configurations of Video4Linux? ... I want to not have to write all those algorithms myself. I want the device manufacturer, or the distro maintainer maybe, to describe what each of those devices does, or each of those nodes over here does, and I also want, on the other side, to describe what kind of an output I want ..."

It is awesome to see this ongoing work!

All the best,
Markus

[hurufu]

libobscura is especially great news! I love how slowly but surely people starting rediscover the Power of Prolog! Sadly Prolog is still a hard sell in a corporate environment.

[hurufu]

JavaScript on the other hand is dominating nearly every field, I'm even forced to write JS code for embedded and slow (arm9) devices...

[indieterminacy]

Hello Markus,

Thanks for the plug!

I should warn you that there will be a lot of themes and disciplines crammed into that 20 minute talk.
Additionally, the rapport and longstanding history with the audience and other volunteers allow me to take risks which may be unwise with other audiences.

Your presentation on CLP is likely to remain the definitive online resource for some time longer,
and I will be happy to mention this and flag up other pedagogical resources so that I can both deviate and pay more attention to my applied usecases for CLP.

Additionally, I may have to fall back on presenting SWI-Prolog rather than Scryer,
for the considerable time it took for me to package Scryer in Guix:
#2776 (comment)

I may have enough time to transpose what Im discussing but I fear some other presentational forms or voluntary activities suffering (we shall see, I like a challenge and am used to being haggard at conferences).

In addition to advances by The Spritely Foundation and the new maturity regarding Shepherd, I should point out this interesting talk:
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6431-concurrent-logic-programming-an-exploration-of-minikanren-in-fleng-pcn/

My only regret is that I didnt lobby hard during November's meetup for people to submit to that devroom (of which Im an organiser).

[triska]

Awesome, it is very exciting to see these developments, please keep up the great work!

I didnt lobby hard during November's meetup for people to submit to that devroom

Regarding this point, I think you did very well: The point of the Scryer meetup, or any meetup as I understand it, is not to lobby hard for a different event, but to enjoy the moment with others as it is. You did mention FOSDEM and it did attract interest, which I think is a perfect outcome. In the same spirit, I would encourage mentioning this year's Scryer Prolog meetup (yet to be announced, taking place in November) at FOSDEM in a way that yields the optimal outcome for both events.

[triska]

That was a very nice talk Jonathan, thank you a lot!

[indieterminacy]

Thanks.

I had this post from Mastodon regarding it from an unknown attendee, which amused me:
https://mastodon.social/@dentarg/113934424491188731

The later talk on Minikanren was satisfying regarding Prolog
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6431-concurrent-logic-programming-an-exploration-of-minikanren-in-fleng-pcn/

Given that, I wish mine came afterwards.
Supposedly there was somebody earlier discussing Prolog.

Also, @jgarte gave a lightning talk during Guix Days - which I understand covered Prolog -- so I reckon its been a useful festival.

[jjtolton]

This looks great, @indieterminacy !!! Really interested in the internals of CLP, will be very excited to see the talk.

[indieterminacy]

Thanks,

I resented that a couple factors meant that I didnt cover Prolog let alone CLP in its classical or introductory approach.
It was more thunder than lightning in that respect -- it was more of a justification in the end.

I will be able to resolve this stuff better the next time Im on stage.

[hurufu]

Another FOSDEM talk featuring CLP! https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6337-constraint-logic-programming-from-the-perspective-of-annotations/