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The CIAO System

• Functionality:
  • Multi-paradigm compiler / programming environment.
  • Supports the programming styles of LP (Prolog), CLP (constraints), CC (concurrency), Andorra,...
    (+ functions, higher order syntax support, active objects, scripts, records, WWW interface, ...)
  • Concurrency, parallelism, and distributed execution.
  • Largely ``backwards compatible'' with trad. LP/CLP systems.
• Implementation approach:
  • Much functionality implemented by compilation to a simple kernel language via source to source transformations.
  • Performs global analysis.
  • Compile-time optimizations via program transformation, incl.\ multiple (abstract) specialization, parallelization, ...
• Can be used to compile (with different efficiency) to different implementation platforms:
  • General purpose LP/CLP systems with delay primitives and attributed variables (e.g., SICStus, Eclipse)
  • The CIAO abstract machine (an enhancement of the &-Prolog abstract machine)
• Compiler writer's workbench: Driver / very flexible experimentation platform.
• Also very useful system/library for developing applications!