外文资料
Creating an Internal Content Management System
Calvin and Hobbes: Managing Our Content Online
Manager Tab (Manager)
Reference Desk Tab (RefDesk)
Reference Desk Schedule Tab (RefDesk Sched)
Library Statistics Tab (Stats)
Library Meeting Minutes (Minutes)
Library Resources Tab (Lib Resources)
Library Hours Tab (Lib Hours)
Library News Tab (LibNews)
Database Maintenance (DB Projects)
Bookmarks (Bookmarks on bar beneath the tabs)
The Future of Hobbes
References
Further Reading
Here at Calvin College, we created Hobbes, a hybrid of CMS and intranet that organizes Web site content and a variety of internal tools to help our libraries complete their daily tasks.
When I became digital resources and reference/ instruction librarian in 1999 at the Hekman Library at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, one of my first tasks was to redesign the library's Web site. Like many of you who maintain Web links to library resources, I quickly learned that offering access to a large number of resources from an even larger number of static Web pages can never really be described as efficient or professionally fulfilling.
In recent years, many libraries have created dynamic Web sites that are database-driven, that is, maintained and populated with content stored within what can be loosely termed a content management system (CMS). In 2001, Jed Koops, the Hekman Library systems programmer, and I created a CMS called Hobbes (library staff liked the play on the words "Calvin and Hobbes"). Since then, Hobbes has grown into a hybrid of CMS and intranet to include not only Web site content, but also a variety of internal tools used by librarians to help them complete some of their daily tasks.
Hekman is a small academic library serving more than 4,200 students, 370 faculty, and many community patrons. The majority of the library's 1.7 million items (books,
e-books, journals, e-journals, microfiche, government documents, etc.) are spread across 100,000 square feet over four floors. Hekman employs the full-time equivalent of 17 staff, including eight professional librarians who also serve as liaisons to all of the college's 25 academic departments. Access to all library resources is provided through the online catalog (Sirsi), a digital media archive (Sirsi), and our Web site, the Hekman Digital Library (HDL). Since its creation in 1997, the HDL has grown from a mundane list of links and library information to the primary point of access to all of the library's resources. In 2001, I created the current version of the HDL.
Calvin and Hobbes: Managing Our Content Online
Hobbes is a Web-based tool that uses Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts written in Perl to store, query, and return results from data stored in a series of related SQL tables. Because it is Web-based, librarians can easily manage data without knowing Perl or SQL and can be authenticated into the system using the college's existing online directory By authenticating through a continually updated college database of login names and passwords, we did not need to create our own. Users added to the Hobbes environment have immediate access without needing to remember yet another ID and password.
As a CMS, I initially envisioned Hobbes as a tool to help me to efficiently manage the library's Web pages, specifically the growing number of subscription-based resources. In the months after Jed and I implemented Hobbes, we realized that it could be used to host tools that served the library's internal communication needs as well. Over the course of 2 years, we added tools as they were thought of and created, and placed them according to their function under tabs that are strung along the top of the Hobbes environment (see Figure 1). Each librarian is given access to the tabs and tools she needs based on her profile within Hobbes. Here I will describe each tab and some of the major tools (or tables) placed within it. With each description, I have included our label in parentheses to help you compare what you are reading to the screen shots. To see how some of Hobbes' resources are displayed to the public, please visit the HDL at https://www.doczj.com/doc/309602699.html,/library.
Manager Tab (Manager)
The Manager tab is used primarily by Jed and me to administer the contents within Hobbes. Since there are quite a few tools under the Manager tab (see Figure 1), I'll briefly explain a number of these before moving on to the functions of the other tabs.
Databases (TofDbs): Each research database record stored in a table of databases
(Tombs) contains the following fields that allow the resources to be displayed on the HDL in a variety of helpful ways:
Alphabetical--Based on the first letter; can also include See Also references
Type--Citation index, abstracts, full text
Authentication--Whether the resource is accessed through IP authentication, for free on the Web, on a CD-ROM, or through a print index
Full-text type--Describes a database's full-text content, such as journal or newspaper articles, e-books, or even primary source historical documents Vendor--Most useful for our librarians
Subject--In our case, based on the college's academic disciplines
Peer-reviewed/refereed--Has a field where instructions can be included on how to limit a database search to peer-reviewed/ refereed articles
Citation examples--Includes a field that shows examples of citation styles for material found in the database. We created a Web page on how to cite electronic resources, and this page displays a list of full-text databases. When clicked, it brings the user to an information page that offers examples of how to cite the full-text content.
Descriptors--Terms that describe the database and its contents, making it possible for patrons to search for appropriate databases. However, we turned off the search feature on the HDL, because many patrons thought that by searching for a database, they were actually searching the contents of the database itself.
Microforms (TofMic): Web pages that describe our microform sets are stored as records in a table of microforms. In addition to a brief description of the microform set, each TofMic record includes detailed contents information. For some sets, this means a reel-by-reel description or a detailed bibliography For sets that have individual MARC records in our online catalog, we display a WebCat search box that limits searches to the appropriate microform set.
Reference (TofRef): The college's academic departments each have an assigned library liaison. One role of the liaison is to maintain a Web page that highlights library resources that are important to the department, such as databases, microform sets, and reference sets. Each liaison can add Web resources that she considers important for her departments.
Staff (Staff): In addition to displaying staff information on the HDL, creating a table of staff members allows each of the librarians to be authenticated into Hobbes. Like Tombs records, the staff record contains many fields that allow them to be used
in a variety of ways:
Login name (based on the college's LDAP server)
Status--Librarian, support staff, student assistant
Office location, office hours, and phone number
Responsibility--These show up in the HDL's A-Z Index, so that users can look for, say, the cataloging librarian
Birthday (so we all know when to expect treats!)
Access level--This determines the Hobbes tabs (and tables within the tabs) that each staff member has access to. For example, the circulation manager only has access to the Lib Hours, Minutes, and Lib Resources tabs.
A-Z Index of this Web site (A-Z Index): Entries that appear on the HDL's "A-Z Index of this web site" bring together records from several tables into one place, including the A-Z Index table, the TofDbs, TofMic, TofRef, and Staff table (see Figure 2).
Icons (Icons): As Figure 2 shows, we made the A-Z Index more visually appealing after implementing a database of icons that is itself linked to from other Hobbes tables.
E-journals (Ejournal): Based on the experience gained from implementing Hobbes, Jed and I decided to try our hand at managing our growing collection of e-journals. The Ejournal tool in Hobbes is designed to accept a collection in the form of batch loads of comma-delimited files (created from lists from aggregated databases and our own e-journal lists). Using a complicated script, the tool creates e-journal records for each title based on ISSN; any subsequent e-journals that are loaded as part of another collection are not added as unique records, but rather as a holding to the main e-journal record. Initially displayed to the public within a separate database called the E-journal Locator, we eventually figured out how to import these e-journal records into our online catalog, thereby offering our patrons one place to find all our journals, print or online.
Passwords (Passwords): This table contains password records for resources that require login information, such as e-journals, database administrative modules, or database usage statistics. Creating one place for these allows the librarians to easily share this important information.
Quotations (Quotes): The HDL home page displays a unique quote each time it is loaded, and each of these quotations is stored in the Quotes database. Additional tables control the "message of the day" (WebCat motd) that appears in the banner of
our online catalog.
Reference Desk Tab (RefDesk)
The default Hobbes screen for the reference librarians is the RefDesk tab, which displays the tools they use while working at the reference desk. The top half of the screen displays any questions that have been submitted by a patron using the Ask a Librarian Web form. The librarian can choose to immediately answer a question or assign it to another librarian. (See Figure 3.) Statistics for all these questions are internally tabulated and can be accessed in Hobbes' Stats tab.
The bottom half of the RefDesk screen displays a RefBlog (a Weblog) where librarians post reference-related entries. RefBlog entries can also be tagged as sample reference questions to supply anecdotal evidence in statistical reports. All of the information within the RefDesk tab is searchable.
Reference Desk Schedule Tab (RefDesk Sched)
With constant shift changes being scribbled on the print copy of the reference desk schedule, or with shifts being missed because they could not consult the schedule from home, our librarians welcomed the addition of an online reference desk schedule in Hobbes (see Figure 4). Four weeks' worth of shifts are displayed at one time, and changes can be made simply by clicking on a librarian's name in a particular time slot.(n1)
Library Statistics Tab (Stats)
Before Hobbes, librarians kept track of their own statistics in individual Microsoft Excel files, a program that many knew well enough to enter data into, but not well enough to creatively display or manipulate that data. Various statistical tables are included in the Stats tab, as is a utility to create reports based on date and other criteria.
Library Meeting Minutes (Minutes)
The Minutes tab displays folders that contain minutes from the various groups of library staff that hold regular meetings. After being completed in Microsoft Word, the secretary logs into Hobbes and uploads the minutes into the appropriate folder for future reference. Also, an e-mail with the attached minutes is distributed to staff members who have this preference selected in their staff table record.
Library Resources Tab (Lib Resources)
While the librarians are able to share documents on a common drive on the campus network, it became apparent that some information could be better shared by being displayed within Hobbes. The Lib Resources tab contains a wide variety of
links to resources such as a fund status report (used by liaisons to track departmental book budgets); employee policies; evaluation documents; and library labels, signs, and graphics.
Library Hours Tab (Lib Hours)
Hekman Library's hours are not easy to describe with text, so they are displayed on the HDL in a 2-month calendar format. After being incorporated into Hobbes, the tedious process of updating this Web page was replaced by a table that utilizes an existing calendar.
Library News Tab (LibNews)
After attending a session on RSS(n2) at the 2003 Computers in Libraries conference, it didn't take me long to wonder how we could incorporate this into Hobbes, and it took even less time for Jed to actually implement this feature. The LibNews tab displays information from RSS feeds, with the name of the feed on the left and the contents of the feed displayed within a box on the right.
Database Maintenance (DB Projects)
This tab contains links to the administrative modules of five locally created databases.(n3) As with e-journals, records can be added, edited, and deleted, and bulk amounts of data can be imported using delimited files.
Bookmarks (Bookmarks on bar beneath the tabs)
Since Hobbes displays information based on a librarian's login, we were able to add some tools that provided unique data for a given librarian. For example, each person is able to upload his or her browser bookmarks from the office computer to use at the reference desk or from home. Librarians are also able to upload liaison newsletters into Hobbes, which in turn are displayed on their HDL staff page.
THE LOGIC PROGRAMMING OF Hobbes
Logic programming, which is based on the first-order predicate logic, has been widely used in AI applications, It is a programming style of attractive features. As logic is regarded as a formalism unifying AI, data management and programming, it is the key feature of many new generation projects, especially the FGCS. The principal idea behind logic programming is that an algorithm comprises two parts: a logical component and a control component. The users need only to specify in his program what to do (i.e. , the logical component ), whereas it is the responsibility of the system to exercise the control on how to do it.
One of the major feature of logic programs is its non-determinisms. Compared
with normal programs, logic programs are non-deterministic in two senses:
(1)When several clauses match a given procedure call, the search strategy by means of which the alternative clauses are tride is not determined.
(2)When several calls need to be executed in a single goal statement, the order of execution is not determined.
The non-determinisms of logic programs make them suitable for AI applications (e.g., problem solving ) and potentially rich in parallelism.
There is continuous effort in improving the implementation efficiency of Prolog, which is a restriction of logic programming. However, the past effort mainly focuses on interpreter-based software implementation. It is only in recent years that Prolog oriented computer architectures are developed. The PSI-II in Japan and the PLM at Berkeley are two famous sequential Prolog machines, which are based on the WAM, a high performance compiler-based execution model for Prolog. It is estimated that the highest possible performance of a sequential Prolog machine constructed.
In order to meet the demand of gigantic inference speed in AI applications, the inherent parallelisms in logic programs should be exploited. There are many sources of parallelism in logic programs, of which the major ones are the AND-parallelism, the ORparallelism and the stream parallelism. Substantial research has been carried out on parallel computation models utilizing these parallelisms.
New logic programming languages suitable for parallel processing have been developed. For example, the Concurrent Prolog, the GHC, the Parlog, the Delta-prolog, etc. special architectures supporting efficient implementation of these languages have been investigated. Besides, multiprocessor systems have been constructed to greatly enhance the performance of parallel processing of logic programs and production systems.
THE DATAFLOW COMPUTATION OF Hobbes
Traditional computers are challenged with application which require tremendously high-speed computation capability, which has led computer scientists to study non vonneumann architectures, of which the most promising one is the dataflow architecture. A dataflow computation is one in which the operations are executed in an order determined by the data interdependencies and the availability of resources. In a dataflow program, the ordering of operations is not specified by the programmer, but is that implied by the data interdependencies.
Two varieties of dataflow computation can be distinguished: data-driven computations, and demand-driven computations. In a data-driven computer, an
instruction can be executed as soon as the input data it requires are available. After the instruction is executed, its result is made available to the successor instructions. In a demand driven (e.g. , reduction) system, an instruction is triggered when the results produced by it are demanded by other instructions. These demands cause further demands for operands unless the operands are locally available in which case the instruction is executed and the results are sent back. In both of these systems, as a result of data (or demand) activated instruction execution, many instructions can become available for execution at once , and it is possible to exploit all of the parallelism in the program. It is expected that these architectures can efficiently exploit concurrency of computation on a very large scale. A number of such systems are being developed around the world. Most notably, the Japanese have chosen dataflow as the underlying architecture for their Fifth Generation Machines. Dataflow and reduction architectures hold great promise, but there are some important problems to be solved before they can be used effectively to provide large scale parallelism. One major problem of dataflow architecture is its heavy overhead. To solve the problem, proposals have been made to combine dataflow with control flow, and to exploit parallelisms at task-level.
The Future of Hobbes
Jed and I created Hobbes on the fly, with no blueprint for what the "product" would eventually become. Consequently, we gave many of the resources names and locations that made sense to us, but would potentially be quite confusing for the librarians who use the system, or for our successors were we to leave Calvin. ("Uh, what exactly is a 'Tofdbs_cit_label'?") With this in mind, most Hobbes tools have a text box for instructions that can uniquely identify the resource, and say why the tool was created and what HDL pages contain its dynamic data. (See Figure 1.) In the near future, I plan to flesh out these instructions as we consider plans to make Hobbes control the remaining HDL pages. From time to time, we find other ways of displaying the data, and as other tools are added, we rename, recreate, and reorganize some of the tabs.
Even though Hobbes is yet another resource vying for attention in already-full schedules, it was not difficult to convince the librarians that Hobbes was something they should be using. They like that library information has been moved from files on a shared network directory to an environment where it can be stored, displayed, and manipulated for the benefit of both the library staff and the patrons we serve.
The biggest challenges that we face are the maintenance required to keep Hobbes'
information up-to-date and keeping the complex scripts working properly. Creating a CMS like Hobbes required extensive programming skills. Despite Hekman Library's relatively small size, I was fortunate that it also employed a systems programmer. Other libraries considering an undertaking like Hobbes would not only have to evaluate the skills of available employees, but also consider the time needed to create and maintain such a system.
中文译文
题名:internet信息管理系统作者:西曼, 格雷格,计算机图书室,10417915, 2004年一月,24册
数据库:专业开发收集信息库
internet信息管理系统
关键字:
加尔文和霍布斯:在线信息管理系统
在线管理系统是由加尔文大学建立的.他是一个功能强大的系统,包括各种各样的工具.适用于企业内部网的站点内容管理以及日常数据信息的维护.
1999年在加尔文大学的图书馆工作的时候,我其中的一个工作是重新设计图书馆的web站点.正如千万个web站点维护人员一样,我整日连接着数据信息.我很快就感受到利用如此巨大的数据库去连接大量的静态网页是一件多么第效率的事情.而且不能用到一点专业知识.
近几年里,许多图书馆建立了基于数据驱动动态的站点管理.这个站点利用简单的语句开发出信息管理系统.主要用于维护和存储数据.在2001年，我和凯门图书中心的研发人员杰德.库思共同开发了信息管理系统叫做Hobbes(图书管理员就像在玩文字游戏).从那时开始,经过我们不断调试与改进.这个系统日趋完善.能有各种适用于企业内部网的工具以及一些能够维护图书馆日常工作的任务.
Hekman是一个小型的图书馆，他提供370个系4200个学生读书和许多的社会团体。图书馆的大约有1700000000本书（包括电子书，政府文档等）都放在四层楼面积大约为100000平方米。Hekman雇佣17个职员日夜工作，包括8个专业的图书管理员专门用于和25个电子部门进行交流。访问所有的图书馆资源都可以通过在线目录浏览，那就是Hekman数据库图书馆（HDL）。迄今为止，1997年建立的HDL，HDL已经成为连接世界各方面信息的系统。并且图书馆的信息主要来自与这个图书馆。在2001年，我建立了HDL当今最流行的版本。
加尔文和霍布斯：管理我们的在先文本
霍布斯是一种基于站点的工具用语普通界面脚本，是用Perl语言从SQL数据库存储、查询并返回。因为基于站点的图书馆能够很容易的管理数据，而且管理员可以对Perl或者SQL语言一无所知。这个系统通过鉴别登陆数据库的用户名和密码来鉴定使用系统。我们不需要自己建立自己。用户可以立刻进入系统不需要用户名和密码。
作为一个信息管理系统，我刚开始认为霍布斯作为一个工具来帮助我管理图
书馆的WEB站点。当我和杰德使用几个月后，我们意识到我们需要利用这个系统很好的在内部进行方便的交流。大约过了2年，我们自己工作增加了系统很多工具。把原来的一些模块捆绑起来作为工具，这样就更方便我们的使用了。
在霍布斯系统中，每一个图书馆建立连接表和工具时首先他们都要了解图书馆的大概构架。（了解并计算一些主要的工具）。对于每一个描述，我们已经包括了很多的插入语来帮助您来阅读这些关键的地方。霍布斯的资源已经展现给大家了，请登陆https://www.doczj.com/doc/309602699.html,/library 来访问我们的HDL。
管理员
这个管理员主要是由我和杰德共同管理霍布斯里面的内容的。迄今为止这儿已经有很多的工具在管理员下面了。在我们将其他功能以前我将简单的解释一下这些功能。
数据库：每一个搜索数据库的记录都保存在数据库的一个表里面。包含了许多的字段。他通过许多的方式把资源显示在HDL里面。
按照字母顺序：这是基于第一个字母；也同样能够包括其他的样本。
类别：引用索引，摘要，全文。
鉴定：资源在传输的过程中，通过网站，光盘，或者是打印，是否通过了ip鉴定。
文章类型：描述一个数据库的全文内容，正如杂志或者是报纸的文章，电子书，甚至是主要的历史文档。
卖主：大多数用我们图书管的人。
主题：在我们这种情况下，是基于学院的基本知识。
同等的复习和咨询：有一片领域那时包括如何在有限的数据库便于搜索我所需要的东西。
引用例题：包括一个领域能够显示引用类别的示例用于在数据库中能够寻找。我们建立一个站点用语如何引用电子文档资源。并且这些页面战士了一系列的数据库。当点击它，他就会给用户一个信息页面，用于提供符合条件的文章内容。描述符：术语描述的是数据库和它本声的内容，主要用于当赞助商需要搜索适当的数据库时给予必要的支持。然而，我们在HDL上改变了搜索的方法，因为许多的赞助商认为他们是在搜索数据库，其实他们是在搜索数据库的内容。
微缩过程：站点页面描述了我们存储数据的记录在一个表中是一个微缩过程。除了一个简洁的描述之外，每一个微缩过程的记录都包含了详细的信息。在某些方面，这就意味着一些描述和详细的设置在在线目录中，我们展示了在合适的微缩过程中的搜索。
职员：除了在HDL显示职员信息之外，建立一个职员表也是很有必要的。每一个图书馆都有这样的一个表。就象坟墓记录，这些职员表包括许多的资源允许他们做各种各样的事情：
登录名（基于LDAP大学服务器）
身份：图书管理员，基本职员，学生
办公室位置：办公室的电话号码等
职责：这些显示出HDL从A到Z的索引，以便用户能够很好的找到他们，也就是说图书馆的目录。
生日：（我们所期待的宴会）
访问级别：这些决定了没一个职员都有不同的权限。例如：发布经理仅仅能访问lib几个小时，甚至几分钟，并且只是Lib的资源。
在站点中的A到Z的索引：在HDL的A到Z的索引中，在同一个位置有许多的表都放在这。包括A到Z的索引表。还有职员表等
图象：图2展示给我们的是：我们用A到Z索引把图片连接在一起，而这些又连上其他的表。
电子杂志：从Hobbes的建设过程中，我们总结出很多的经验。我和杰德决定去管理和发展我们的电子杂志。电子杂志工具是在Hobes中聚集一些限定符，用复杂的脚本语言，使得这些工具建立了一些电子记录用于每一个标题在ISSN中。任何的电子杂志都是搜集了唯一的记录之后形成的。他们是这些记录的一部分。但是不如从主要的电子杂志那么好用。开始的时候展示了公共的分离数据记录的工具叫电子杂志。我们最后明白了如何把这些电子杂志导入到我们的在线目录，然而我们的赞助商从一个网页找到了所有的杂志，并且打印出来。
密码：这些表包含了密码记录用于登陆信息的基本方法，例如电子杂志，数据管理员模块，或者是数据统计员。这些重要的信息，管理员通过登陆就可以在同一个页面管理他们。
引用语：当导入一些信息的时候，HDL主页展示了唯一的引用，并且每一次引用存储在引用数据库中。附加的表格控制了显示在在线目录中的每天信息。
有关桌面的标签
默认的Hobbes屏幕展示了图书馆的桌面标签，而且展示了一些工具。他们用于用户能够很好的在桌面上工作。在屏幕上半方展示了一些用户向管理员提出的问题。管理员能够很方便的回答一些问题。（如图3）所有的这些问题都会通过统计的出来的。
在屏幕的下半部展示了另外的一些信息。那是管理员发送一些信息给大家。所有的在这里面的信息都是可以查到的。
进度表标签
在图书馆，因为他们不能在家里商量日程表。所以我们制作了一个在线的商量的一个平台。4个星期的时间使得我们做出来了。并且只要很简单的点击按钮就可以进行大家的商议了。
图书馆统计标签
在Hobbes还没有出来之前，图书馆依然保持原来的方式。用微软公司的excel 表来保存文件。我们能够很好的把数据导入进去，但是不是很好的建立和展示很复杂的数据。各种各样的统计表在Stats标签中，他会很有效的建立一些记录，并且这些记录是基于统一的标准，也可以基于其他的标准。
图书馆会议记录
会议记录标签展示了许多的文件。其中包含了许多组的成员他们日常开会的内容。这些内容使用微软的word软件保存的，秘书记录Hobbes和上传记录放在合适的位置。当然，一个电子邮件附上记录展示成员个数在他们的记录中。
图书馆资源标签
当图书馆能提供很多的文件给大家的时候，那么就要提供一个大学局域网。很显然一些信息能够在Hobbes里面共享出来那时最好的方式了。图书馆资源标签包含了很广的，各种各样的链接。其中包括雇员政策，教育文档和图书馆题目，标记和图形。
图书馆时间标签
Hekman图书馆时间标签不是很容易描述文本内容的，所以他们在HDL里展示了日历格式。把这个标签和Hobbes合为一体，在这个站点的单一处理方式
取代了原来的存储日历方式。
图书馆新闻标签
在2003年电脑图书馆会议之后，我没有花太多的时间考虑我们如何组合这个标签在Hobbes，并且这些特性只花了我很少一部分时间。图书馆新闻标签展示了从RSS反馈出来的一些信息，反馈信息的题目在左面，反馈的内容在一个标题里，在屏幕的右面。
数据库维护
这个标签包含了很多的超链接，其中包括管理员模块中建立的5个本地的数据库。例如电子杂志，记录等这些东西都能够添加，修改和删除，并且很多的数据都能够导入到数据库中。
书签
当Hobbes展示了基于图书馆登陆，我们能够添加一些工具以便支持唯一的数据为图书馆提供。例如：每个人都能够上传他或者她门的书签从自己的电脑上。他们可以在家里做这些事，也可以在会议桌上。图书馆也能够从上传新的内容在Hobbes，这些都展示在他们自己的职员页面。
Hobbes用到的逻辑编程
基于一阶谓词逻辑的逻辑编程已被广泛地用于AI应用，它是一种极有吸引力的编程方式。由于逻辑被认为是统一AI，数据管理和编程的形式体系，它是许多新一代计算机，特别是FGCS的主要特性。逻辑编程的主要概念是由两部分组成的一个算法：逻辑部分和控制部分。用户只需在其程序中指明要做什么（即逻辑部分），而系统则负责控制如何去做。
逻辑程序的一个主要特点是其不确定性，与普通程序相比，逻辑程序在以下两个方面是不确定的：
1) 当几个子句符合一个给定的过程调用时，通过试探其它子句的搜寻策略是不确定的。
2) 当几个调用需在一个单独的目标语句中执行时，执行顺序是不确定的。
逻辑程序的不确定性使它适合于AI应用（即：问题的求解）并在执行处理中具有极大的潜力。
人们在提高Prolog的执行效率方面正进行持续的努力，它是逻辑编程的一个制约。然而，过去人们把所有的努力都集中在基于解释的软件执行上。知道仅近年来，面向Prolog的计算机结构才得以发展。日本的PSI-II和伯克利的PLM 是两个著名的顺序Prolog计算机。对于Prolog，它们是以WAM为基础的高性能基于编译执行的模型。估计用现在的硬件技术以合理价格来构成的顺序Prolog 机最高性能大约是1MLIPS。
为了满足在AI应用中所需要的极高的推理速度，应利用逻辑程序中的原有的并行性。逻辑程序中存在着许多并行机制，其中最主要的是“与”并行性、“或”的并行性和“流式”并行性。使用这些并行性的并行计算模型的实质性研究正在进行中。
适应于并行处理的新的逻辑编程语言已有了很大的发展，比如：Concurrent
Prolog、GHC、Prolog、Delta-Prolog 等等。对有效地支持这些语言执行的特殊结构已在研究之中。此外，已经构成的多处理器系统大大地增强了逻辑程序和生成系统的并行处理性能。
Hobbes用到的数据流计算
传统的计算机主要面对的是需要极高速计算能力的挑战，这是等计算机科学家去研究非冯·诺依曼机构，其中最有前途的就是数据流结构。数据流计算是这样一种计算，其中的操作是由相互依存的数据和所有资源确定的顺序来执行。在数据流程序中，操作顺序不是由编程人员确定的，而是由相互依存的数据来指示。
数据流计算可分为两种：数据驱动计算和需求驱动计算。在数据驱动计算机中，一个指令，只要它需求的数一输入就立即被执行，至各指令执行之后，其结果就可为后面的指令使用。在需求驱动（例如精简）系统中，当一个指令产生的结果为其它指令需要时，这个指令才被启动。这些需求引起对操作数的进一步需求，除非操作数是局部有效的。在这种情况下，指令被执行并将结果返回。在这两种系统中，作为执行数据（或需求）激活的指令执行结果，许多指令可以立即变成执行有效状态，这样就有可能在程序中全部实现并行操作，我们期望这种结构能有效地开发大规模计算。为数不少的此类系统正在全世界开发着，最为著名的就是日本已选择数据流作为其第五代计算机的基本结构。数据流和精简结构有着广阔的前景，但是再将它们有效地用于大规模并行处理之前还有许多重要问题需要解决。数据流结构的一个最主要的问题就是它庞大的开销，要解决这个问题，有人提议将控制流域数据流相结合并在任务机上开发并行处理机制。
Hobbes的未来
我和杰德利用课余时间建立了这个系统，所以没有为我们的产品规划很好的蓝图。因此，我们给了很多模块很多的名字。但是我们感觉到潜在的感到很疑惑，因为我们在考虑谁将用我们的系统，依靠我的想法是我们的四个人离开大学之后，谁来接替我们。大多数hobbes工具都可以通过指令进行操作。你们也许会问，这些工具为什么建立以及HDL页面如何包含动态数据库的。在不久的将来，我准备去把这些指令扩充，以便于我们以后能够更好的控制HDL页面。有时，我们发现其他的方法展示数据，同样的，其他的工具也要增加，我们修改名字，重新建立，并且重新认识其他的标签。
即使Hobbes现在还有其他的竞争，Hobbes能够被大家所接受并不是容易的一件事情。他们喜欢那些图书馆的信息已经从局域网以目录的方式显示出来。并且能够保存，展示以及熟练的操作。所有的这些都要很轻松地为赞助商服务。我们面临的最大的挑战是如何维护我们的Hobbes，使得他的信息能够每天的更新。保持这些复杂的代码能够很好的得到诶户。建立一个CMS就象Hobbes要求扩展程序的更好的功能。尽管Hekman图书馆规模比较小，但是我还是很幸运地雇佣到了系统程序员。其他的图书馆考虑如何保证象Hobbes不仅仅让雇员能够很好的利用这些技巧，也要考虑建立和维护系统所需要的时间。