Search and imperative programming

Abstract

We augment the expressive power of imperative programming in order to make it a more attractive vehicle for problems that involve search. The proposed additions are limited yet powerful and are inspired by the logic programming paradigm. We illustrate their use by presenting solutions to a number of classical problems, including the straight search problem, the knapsack problem, and the 8 queens problem. These solutions are substantially simpler than their counterparts written in the conventional way and can be used for different purposes without any modification. The proposed language is an intermediate stage on the road towards a realization of a strongly typed constraint programming language that combines the advantages of the logic programming and imperative programming.