Presenter: Ian Horswill, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Northwestern University

Description: Declarative programming, such as logic programming, allows designers to write concise programs describing what to compute without having to go into detail on how to compute it. However, they are often far slower than the equivalent imperative programs.

In this talk, Professor Horswill will argue that there is a happy coincidence between the needs of curationist narrative systems and the capabilities of bottom-up logic programming that allows the simulation to be written in the same language as the story-sifter, while still being highly performant. Their simulator runs with virtually no GC, pointer-chasing, or run-time type checking. 

He will discuss the design of the logic programming system, as well as early work by Samuel Hill on building a TalkOfTheTown clone within it.

Bio: Ian Horswill is Associate Professor of Computer Science and Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University. His research involves using artificial intelligence to allow artists and designers to expand the expressive range of games and interactive narrative.

Hosted by: Professor Michael Mateas

Zoom link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96316788245?pwd=SENlWGRHYmtLWklUMVB2eTV5T1pyZz09