Invited Editorial

Abstract

Jack Minker explains, in his accompanying Editor's Introduction, the circumstances which have brought about the founding of this new journal, the Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP). The birth of any new journal is an occasion for rejoicing, but in the present case the logic programming community has special reasons to be proud and grateful.

We should be proud that TPLP is published by the Cambridge University Press. The Press in Cambridge is the oldest, and many (I am one) believe it is by far the best, university press in the world. In joining its lists the TPLP immediately acquires some of the patina of centuries of glorious academic excellence and devotion to scholarship. It is a splendid thing – an honor, indeed – to be associated with a publishing house which has for so long and so brilliantly served the academic community without in any way needing to compromise academic values in achieving commercial success.

We should be grateful to our colleagues Krzysztof Apt and Maurice Bruynooghe, who have worked so hard and with such selfless dedication to provide the logic programming community with a journal that it can continue to sponsor. Sadly, this is no longer the case with respect to Journal of Logic Programming. In 1984 when I decided as Founding Editor to publish JLP with the Elsevier organization, the arrangement was satisfactory to both parties, and continued to be so for many years. However, more recently, with the increasing pressures being put on library budgets, the worlds of academic and commercial publishers seem to have grown apart to the point where incompatibilities outweigh affinities. The logic programming community has now entered into a far more solid relationship. The logic of the new marriage is based much more on solid assessment of the interests of both parties. We are living through times of important change in the publishing world, and the new order is taking shape along intelligible and stable lines.

All is well. Although it is with sadness that we bid goodbye to the JLP, we must reflect that this is only a transmigration of one and the same living entity, from an old incarnation to a new one. So it is with joy and hope that we at the same time welcome the Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. The JLP had a good life, and its great spirit will live on in TPLP. The continuity of the logic programming community's research record is unbroken and unscathed. Its future is now secure in the care of the best of all possible editorial leadership, and under the banner of the best of all possible publishers.