[Oz] Using Mozart & benchmarks

[Dave Moffat]

Hello Mozartians,

Having installed mozart & started to try & use it,
it seems there might be some significant
documentation that I'm missing.
Namely: how is it supposed to be used under emacs?
If you start up mozart, you get a new (?!) emacs
process and a buffer in Oz-mode, but there is little
help about what to do with it. Special keys,
yes, for consulting/loading/compiling the current
paragraph etc., but how do the experts use
the system day-to-day?

Question 2. Benchmarks / Prolog (etc.) comparisons.
The documentation claims a performance for Oz comparable with
state-of-the-art Prolog and Lisp compilers.
That would be nice to have real figures for.
Also, if the Oz computation model is 'deeper'
and more 'fundamental / elementary' than other
programming paradigms, then it should be possible
to compile (subsets of) Prolog and Lisp into Oz.
There is an example of that for a functional programming
style in the documentation: has anybody done one
for Prolog as well?
It would be interesting to see how much of Prolog
can be done in Oz, and also what cannot be translated
so easily. That would help those of use who know Prolog
already to understand Oz without beginning at "square one".
Also, it would make speed-comparisons with other compilers
much easier and fairer to carry out.

If the performance is good, and programming platform rich
enough compared to Prolog / Lisp / etc. then lots of
people, myself included, would be glad to start using
Oz instead of the other languages, I think, especially
considering the in-built interfacing and networking facilities.

Thanks to all the Oz/Mozart team :-)

Dave Moffat

-- 
Dave Moffat
School of Psychology              email:  moffat at cardiff.ac.uk
Cardiff University of Wales         tel:  +44.(0)1222.874000 (ext. 6285)
PO Box 901                         (fax:          ....874858)
CARDIFF   CF1 3YG                  http://www.cf.ac.uk/uwc/psych/moffat/
Wales, U.K.
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