Mercury (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:51, 2 March 2008

Revision as of 16:55, 17 March 2008

Line 15:

}}

'''Mercury''' is a [[Functional programming|functional]] [[logic programming|logic]] [[programming language]] geared towards real-world applications. It is developed at the [[University Of Melbourne]] Computer Science department under the supervision of [[Zoltan Somogyi|Zoltán Somogyi]]. The first version was developed by Fergus Henderson, Thomas Conway and Zoltán Somogyi and was released on April 8th8, 1995.

Mercury has several features intended for better [[software engineering]]. It is [[compiler|compiled]] rather than interpreted, as is traditional for logic programming languages. It features a sophisticated, strict [[Data type|type]] and mode system. Its authors claim these features combined with logic programming's abstract nature speeds writing of reliable programs. Mercury's module system enables division into self-contained units, a problem for past logic programming languages. (But note that several [[Prolog]] implementations now also support modules.)