FGCS Project Evaluation Report

Keith L. Clark
Imperial College
London, UK

5th June 1992


next previous contents
Furukawa had read with interest our 1981 paper on the Relational Language and, even 
before the start of the FGCS project, had considered using a concurrent logic language 
rather than an or-parallel Prolog as the PIM kernel language.) Our 1983 visit coincided with 
the second ICOT visit of Ehud Shapiro, the originator of Concurrent Prolog, which was 
based on but significantly extended the Relational Language. I believe that between the 
three of us, we helped convince Koichi Furukawa and his colleagues that adopting a 
concurrent LP language as the PIM kernel language was a sound approach. During that 
visit Steve Gregory and I crystalized our views on the essential features of Parlog, our 
successor to the Relational Language. 

Since 1983 I have briefly visited ICOT twice, in 1985 and 1990, and had papers in both the 
1984 and 1988 FGCS conferences. Colleagues Ian Foster and Jim Crammond, working 
on programming environments and implementations for Parlog, have both been invited to 
ICOT. Over the years there has been much exchange of views between ICOT and the far 
smaller Parlog Group at Imperial. The meta call of Parlog, introduced into Parlog by Steve 
Gregory and I on our 1983 visit to ICOT, is very similar to the shoen of KL1. Both are 
used to support the programming of operating system functions. Hence my vested interest 
in the project, and my earnest wish that it be perceived to be the great achievement that I 
believe it is. If some of my following remarks appear to be critical, they are intended as 
constructive criticism. They represent what I consider needs to be done to convince a 
skeptical world that there are significant results and achievements in the FGCS project of 
which the world had better take note. 

Impact of the FGCS project 

Let me begin by saying some positive things about the impact which the project has had 
outside Japan. 

Firstly, it made Japan pacemakers in logic programming research and a country whose 
research into LP and its AI applications had to be taken seriously by the international AI 
research community. In addition, by the spin offs and interest in computer science research 
that it has generated in Japan, it has also made the country a force in CS research. You 
have also, through rotating industry researchers through the hot house of ICOT, trained a 
new generation of computer scientists and engineers into techniques of advanced research. 
I and others have observed with pleasure the maturing of the young scientists that were 
nurtured by ICOT. They are now well able to hold their own in the international research 
community and to explain their ideas effectively and clearly. Many have remarked to me at 
this conference on the quality of the presentations, especially those from ICOT researchers. 
ICOT staff and associated researches have not only had an impact in the fields of LP 
language design, programming methodology and implementation, they have made 
significant contributions in all areas of logic programming. 

Outside Japan the FGCS project stimulated a great deal of research activity by both 
universities and industry, and it unlocked significant government funds to support this 
research. The UK Alvey and EC ESPRIT programs almost certainly would not have 
started, or would have been funded at much lower levels, were it not for the FGCS project. 
Nor would the industry supported MCC, ECRC and SICS research institutes have been 
formed. For this stimulus to CS research, thank you. I personally owe my chair at 
Imperial, certainly the fact that I got it in 1987, to this increased activity and respect for LP 
research that followed the announcement of the project. 

The FGCS project had a significant effect on the amount of research activity and perceived 
importance of both AI and LP research. The IJCAI 1986 conference in LA and the ICLP 
1986 conference in London have not had higher attendance or greater interest from 


					- 49 -