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Glossary of Terms
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| Atom | The most fundamental element in Prolog made up of a string of characters, numbers, and some special characters. |
| Backtracking | A control method used to search backwards for solutions. |
| Backward-Chaining | A process used to find the solution by searching backwards from the solution towards the initial conditions thus verifying the specified goal. |
| Binding | The process of assigning a variable a value. |
| Bound Variable | A variable that has been assigned a value. |
| Clauses | Either a Prolog fact or rule. |
| Cut | An operator used to terminate backtracking in areas that will not give useful solutions. |
| Declarative Language | A language that allows programming by defining the boundary conditions and constraints and letting the computer determine a solution that meets these requirements. |
| Fact | A statement about the relationship between objects. |
| Fail | A Prolog operator that causes backtracking to occur. |
| Forward-chaining | A process used to find the solution by starting with an assumption and working toward a final goal. |
| Functor | Characterized by its name, which is an atom, and the arity or number of arguements. |
| Goal | The solution that the Prolog program is trying to reach or prove correct. |
| List | A collection of objects enclosed in square brackets such as [a, b, c]. A list is made up of the head (or first element) and a tail (the remainder of the list). |
| Meta-Rule | A rule that defines the roles of other rules. |
| Predicate | A function that returns either a true or false value. |
| Predicate Calculus | The extension of propositional calculus that enables the use of variables. |
| Procedural Language | The traditional programming that is based on algorithms or a logical step-by-step process for solving a problem. |
| Proposition | An expression about an object which can have either a true or false value. |
| Propositional Calculus | The formal logic system used to define the true or false values of objects. |
| Recursion | |
| Rule | A clause that defines the relationship or relationships between facts and objects. |
| Terms | An object, compound object, variable, or list. |
| Unification | The pattern matching technique used by Prolog to match goals and sub-goals in a program. |
| Variables | A storage location with a name that can be assigned a value. |
| For More Info on The Prolog Programming Language |
| Under Construction | Check back soon |
| For More Info on Robotics |
| Extension Language | A general-purpose programming language accessible to the users of the application created with that language. LISP dialects (including Scheme) are often suitable extension languages. |
| Scheme Langauge | A LISP dialect often used within computer science curricula and programming language research. |
| For More Info on Scheme Programming Language |
Smalltalk Programming Language
| Class | See Smalltalk - A Brief Description for more information. |
| Data | |
| Members | |
| Methods | |
| Objects | |
| For More Info on the Smalltalk Programming Language |
| Speech Recognition | The ability of a computer to understand spoken words for the purpose of receiving commands and data input from the speaker. |
| For More Info on Speech Recognition |
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