Absys


title: "Absys" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["declarative-programming-languages", "prolog-programming-language-family", "academic-programming-languages", "logic-programming-languages", "programming-languages-created-in-1967"] topic_path: "technology/programming-languages" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absys" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox programming language"]

FieldValue
paradigmLogic programming
year1967
influencedProlog
::

| paradigm = Logic programming | year = 1967 | influenced = Prolog

Absys was an early declarative programming language from the University of Aberdeen. It anticipated a number of features of Prolog such as negation as failure, aggregation operators, the central role of backtracking and constraint solving. Absys was the first implementation of a logic programming language.

The name Absys was chosen as an abbreviation for Aberdeen System.

References

  • "ABSYS: An Incremental Compiler for Assertions", J.M. Foster et al., Mach Intell 4, Edinburgh U Press, 1969, pp. 423–429

References

  1. (1990). "Absys: the first logic programming language —A retrospective and a commentary". The Journal of Logic Programming.
  2. (1988). "The early years of logic programming". Communications of the ACM.

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declarative-programming-languagesprolog-programming-language-familyacademic-programming-languageslogic-programming-languagesprogramming-languages-created-in-1967