aaron sloman

[Originally included comp.lang.ml in Newsgroups, forgetting that
that is moderated. As that list appears to have had no traffic since
April I am re-posting to the other groups, using the same ID.]

This may be of interest to people involved in teaching and research
in AI, and possibly others interested in varieties of programming
languages and compilers.

Poplog is a multi-language (providing Pop-11, Common Lisp, Prolog,
and ML, all incrementally compiled) software development environment
for teaching and research, originally developed by Sus***
University, previously sold by Systems Designers (SD), then ISL (who
used it to develop the Clementine data-mining system, now owned by
SPSS, recently bought by IBM).

For about a decade Poplog has also been freely available as open
source, with linux the main platform, thanks to the generosity of
Sus*** University. It is available here:

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/freepoplog.html

There is a lot of teaching material for AI and general programming,
some of it described here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/freepoplog.html#teaching

The code examples for the Gazdar and Mellish books on natural
language processing and for other books on AI/Cognitive science are
available on the web site and usable in poplog (mostly Pop-11, but
also Lisp, Prolog and ML), and there are many quite sophisticated
libraries available, including the Popvision package (by David
Young, Sus*** University) and our own SimAgent toolkit
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/packages/simagent.html

It also includes a programmable plain text editor supporting
hypertext, usable for poplog do***entation and running code
examples. (I use it to compose and post news items like this, via
a NNTP server.)

Although there has been a version of poplog that works on MS Windows
for some time, it does not include the graphical facilities as they
require the X window system. Moreover, not all the recent additions
in the linux version have been ported to the windows version of
poplog.

But now linux poplog can be used on windows!

The most recent version of linux poplog, which can be fetched and
installed on most linux systems using one of two shell scripts is
available here:

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/latest-poplog/
(Currently version 15.63)

Until recently windows users could not run that, and therefore had
to either use a dual-boot machine or something like VMWare, or run
poplog remotely, e.g. using Xming to handle local graphics.

It is now possible to install linux poplog on a PC running windows.

Christopher Martin, a user in Australia, has found that it is
possible to use the latest version of linux poplog, including the
graphics facilities, on a PC running windows, without rebooting into
linux, and without recompiling Poplog.

He made use of two free packages:

andLinux

http://www.andlinux.org/
"andLinux is a complete Ubuntu Linux system running seamlessly in
Windows 2000 based systems (2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7; 32-bit
versions only)"
"andLinux is not just for development and runs almost all Linux
applications without modification."


and Xming.

http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/
"Xming is the leading X Window Server for Microsoft Windows.
(XP/2003/Vista/7). It is fully featured, lean, fast, current,
simple to install and because it is standalone native Microsoft Windows,
easily transported portable as a Pocket PC X server."
"When released Public Domain, Xming can be distributed and used
without restriction."

http://gears.aset.psu.edu/hpc/guides/xming/
Xming setup instructions

After following up a suggestion made by Waldek Hebisch (in Poland)

He later very kindly provided do***entation on the installation
process, which I have installed here:

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/winpop/andl

I have recently made some minor modifications, including
format corrections, and adding additional information links.

I am not a windows user and have not tried this installation
procedure. If anyone does try it please post your experiences
online, or email me if you would prefer to have your message posted
anonymously.

Please include the comp.lang.pop group if you post to a net group.

Aaron
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs

dimiter \malkia\ stanev

I'm stuck on a 64-bit Vista, and andLinux does not work there

But thanks for the info!

kaz kylheku

But VirtualBox, VMWare, etc, do work there. Doh?

aaron sloman

Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:


I know that 32-bit Poplog has been used with VMWare on XP.

The main linux poplog package is built for 32 bit linux, and would
depend on the 32 bit linux compatibility libraries being available
on a 64 bit linux system.

There is a 64 bit linux Poplog also here (latest version, less well
tested) which I assume should work:

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/v15.62-amd64/

but I have not had access to a machine to test it recently as we are
using only 32 bit linux here.

It isn't possible simply to provide source code and make files, etc.
since poplog includes an incremental compiler invoked at run time to
compile machine code (or to output assembler when rebuilding or
porting the system). Most of the system sources are in pop-11 and
can only be compiled by a running poplog system. (since about 1980,
when the last version written in C was compiled on a VAX/VMS
system).

If someone tries to run 64 bit linux poplog under vmware I would be
interested to hear the outcome.

Thanks.

Aaron
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs
A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk