Many recent analyses for conventional imperative programs begin by transforming programs into logic programs, capitalising on existing LP analyses and simple LP semantics. We propose using logic programs as an intermediate program representation throughout the compilation process. With restrictions ensuring determinism and single-modedness, a logic program can easily be transformed to machine language or other low-level language, while maintaining the simple semantics that makes it suitable as a language for program analysis and transformation. We present a simple LP language that enforces determinism and single-modedness, and show that it makes a convenient program representation for analysis and transformation.

SICStus Prolog has evolved for nearly 25 years. This is an appropriate point in time for revisiting the main language and design decisions, and try to distill some lessons. SICStus Prolog was conceived in a context of multiple, conflicting Prolog dialect camps and a fledgling standardization effort. We reflect on the impact of this effort and role model implementations on our development. After summarizing the development history, we give a guided tour of the system anatomy, exposing some designs that were not published before. We give an overview of our new interactive development environment, and describe a sample of key applications. Finally, we try to identify key good and not so good design decisions.