The 2025 Prolog Improvement Propoals (PIPs) Workshop
(In preparation.)
The 2025 “Prolog Improvement Proposals (PIPs) Workshop”, will take place at ICLP 2025, U. of Calabria in Rende, Italy, September 12-19, 2025.
What is a PIP
A PIP is a document describing the design and implementation of one Prolog language feature. Examples of PIPs that are recently completed or under development are the JANUS Python interface, static and dynamic dictionaries, a JSON interface specification, a specification for modes, write term options, etc.
PIPs inform the Prolog community about existing approaches and also provide implementers a reference for potential language standardization. It is acceptable to have PIPs describe alternative approaches to any given language feature, although it is hoped that PIPs will promote informal consensus over time. To this end, to be accepted, PIPs must be supported by at least two Prolog systems. This descriptive approach to standardization will complement the existing prescriptive ISO framework and may serve as input to ISO deliberations. More information about the PIP framework and some initial PIPs is available here.
The workshop
This half-day workshop, held at ICLP 2025 in Rende, Italy in September, will offer Prolog implementers and users a chance to understand and comment on the process of PIP creation so that they can adapt it to their own interests. The workshop will begin with a review of the current PIP process and of recently developed PIPs. Next, there will be a chance for implementers and users of Prologs to present short descriptions of features of systems that they believe would benefit other systems. We hope that a result of this workshop will be a wider use of the new Prolog Implementers Forum so that new PIPs will be proposed, developed, reviewed, and adopted by the Prolog community at large.
In order to include as many implementers and interested users as possible we plan to conduct this as a hybrid conference.
How to participate
We welcome:
- Short presentations of proposed PIP topics or features.
- Short presentations on your system’s implementation of some Prolog feature that may be the foundation for a PIP.
- And you can of course just attend the workshop, share ideas, and provide feedback.
To propose a short presentation (around 10min), please submit a presentation title and abstract of 1-2 paragraphs. Presentations at the workshop should be 1-2 slides long.
Deadlines:
(TBA)
The PIPs25 Organizing Committee:
- Carl Andersen, RTX BBN Technologies
- Manuel Hermenegildo, U. Politécnica de Madrid and IMDEA Software Institute
- José F. Morales, U. Politécnica de Madrid and IMDEA Software Institute
- Joachim Schimpf, Coninfer Ltd, UK
- Theresa Swift, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
- David Warren, Stony Brook University
- Jan Wielemaker, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
