Prolog AJAX IDE

Like I need more to think about, this past weekend I got to thinking about a web-based IDE for Prolog.

In many ways, Prolog is a powerful, mature language with features rivaling or even surpassing languages presently en vogue. That is especially true if we look at specific implementations, such as SWI-Prolog. What is really missing is the support of modern tools: editors with auto-completion, graphical debuggers, hidden or just-in-time compile cycles,etc. Given such an IDE, one could imagine it might be possible to fit it into the browser of a mobile phone--an iPhone perhaps.

We could expect that there would be multiple types of pages in the iPhone IDE. A top-level page to select an application to work on, or create a new one. Each application has its own set of pages, such as a list of files and folders, where one may add,delete,or reorganize at will. Each application also likely has a series of settings pages accessible through a button on the main application page. For example, it may be useful to configure what other applications (specified by URL) upon which the application depends.

The point is, SWI-Prolog may be overloooked simply because its tools haven't kept up with the times. If you're going to build a new IDE--why not make it a web-based IDE? Prolog is an elegant, small language, whose code is concise yet readable. Sounds like the perfect for development using an iPhone.