Internet Programming with Logic Programming Languages and Constraint Solvers

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Internet Programming with Logic Programming
Languages and Constraint Solvers

• Paul Tarau
• University of North Texas BinNet Corporation
• http//www.cs.unt.edu/tarau
• http//www.binnetcorp.com
• tarau_at_cs.unt.edu, tarau_at_binnetcorp.com

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PART I An Overview of Internet Development Trends

• A Goal Oriented view
• WHY to develop for the Internet?
• WHAT to develop for the Internet?
• HOW to develop for the Internet?
• Emphasizing from the public library to the
  shopping mall - the new focus on E-Commerce -

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Internet Growth driven by E-Commerce

• Critical mass needed 20 online
• from random graphs sudden emergence of a big
  component
• Growth of E-commerce (US)1998 -gt 29
  billion1999 -gt 98.4 billion2003 -gt 1.2
  trillion (source eMarketer)

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Buying over the Internet

• Initial markets software, travel, books, CDs -
  MP3
• online stock trading Schwab, E-Trade, Suretrade
• online grocery back to the future-)
  HomeGrocer, NetGrocer, Peapod
• online drugstores?

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Auctioning systems/electronic markets

• eBay, priceline
• price comparison/item matching agents
• EBay's Personal Shopper
• Amazons book recommandations
• more conventional shopping chart?
• refereal programs Amazon, priceline

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Trends in E-Commerce

• Integration of e-commerce and corporate data
  processing systems
• backend databases DB2, Oracle
• Complete e-commerce solutions vs. component based
  e-commerce systems
• complete solution offerings IBM
• CGI scripts (Perl), servelets, SSI, Active Server
  Processes (ASP)

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Internet based e-commerce infrastructure

• WWW - still in exponential growth for the next
  few years
• payment is just Information Exhange - subject to
  automation!
• Shopping by features search, online browsing can
  do it better than asking a (not always)
  knowledgeable salesperson
• place for LP/CP the need for intelligent
  knowledge processing

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Encryption, digital signatures

• conventional cryptography DES, BlueFish
• public key cryptography RSA, PGP
• confidentiality PGP only a given group can
  decode, no need for key exchange
• authentication
• digital signature, certificates - VeriSign etc.
• virgin territory for LP/CP cryptography!

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Secure transactions

• SSL basic security built in most browsers,
  alternative SHTTP
• still much better than conventional paper based
  security
• DES is it good for business transactions? (40
  bit ok, 128bit - truly secure)

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Forms of electronic payment

• Electronic Money
• anonymus, unforgeable, sound - a place for LL?
• smart cards - downloadable from online account
• is third party certification needed?
• E-checks vs. credit cards vs. e-cash

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Predictions/Trends?

• E-commerce will completely reshape financial
  institutions
• it is likely to replace various forms of catalog
  and mail order businesses
• successful in information based (books, CDs),
  high margin/low volume, expensive to keep in
  inventory products

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Search Engines, Portals, Service Sites

• Trend from Information to Knowledge - a place
  for LP/CP
• Search engines AltaVista, Snap, NorthernLight
• Portals Yahoo, Lycos
• Specialized service sites
• books www.amazon.com
• travel www.itn.com

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Basics of Internet Infrastructure TCP/IP

• packet switching vs. dedicated point-to-point
  link
• Post Office (small packets ) vs. Phone Center
  (point-to-point link)
• IP header address 129.120.44.123 vs.
• domain based naming www.cs.unt.edu

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Static vs. Dynamic IP addresses

• self contained server and web site static IP
• connecting through an ISP dynamic IP-(
• in fact, this comes from running out of available
  IP addresses - upcoming extended IP numbers might
  solve this - it is quite humiliating for users to
  be cust007.my_isp.com instead of being
  www.JamesBond.com -)

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How to create and register a new domain?

• www.internic.net (not a NSI monopoly anymore!)
• new agency http//www.icann.org/
• http//www.networksolutions.com/
• Whois service http//www.nsiregistry.com/

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How to create a Web Site?

• Dedicated server
• T1 (large volume, high cost) or ISDN (metered,
  slow, starts to look outdated)
• new DSL from GTE (in Dallas-FW area)
• What OS? LinuxApache (more flexible) NT
  (compatible with other MSoft tools)
• Through Web hosting (inexpensive and reliable but
  less flexible)

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Web Site Design Issues

• Usability issues (quick access to frequently
  visited pages)
• Artistic issues (colors, layout, style)
• Designing for speed (.mid .jpg vs. .wav,
  animated .gif)
• Good and bad business web sites - ratings!
• Style look at major media companies
  www.cnn.com, www.disney.com!

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Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) basics

• ltHTMLgt
• ltHEADgt
• ltTITLEgt Welcome To My Page lt/TITLEgt
• lt/HEADgt ltBODYgt
• other html code
• lt/BODYgt
• lt/HTMLgt

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Adding Links

• ltA HREF
• http//www.mycompany.comgt
• My Company
• lt/Agt
• In the Web page it looks like this
• My Company
• ltA HREF"mailtoa_at_b.c.d"gtmy emaillt/Agt

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Including Images and Sound

• ltIMG SRCpictures/me_and_my_dog.gifgt
• good compression JPG
• animated GIFs - easy to make - size can be a
  problem
• Sound MID (small) WAV, AU (older formats) MP3
  (high quality)
• static (tag EMBED, BGSOUND) vs. streaming
  audio/video RealAudio

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Including CGI scripts

• ltform method"post
• action"http//a.b.c.d/cgi-bin/myscript.exe?query
  who" gtgt
• ltinput type"submit" size"40" value"Search"gt
• lt/formgt

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Including Java Applets

• ltapplet
• codemyapplet.class"
• height"200" width"600 gt
• ltparam
• value999
• namedefault_price" gt
• lt/appletgt

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Tools for Building Web Sites

• HTML, tables, forms, CGI scripts
• server side tools SSI, ASP, servlets
• Media formats GIF, JPEG, MPEG, real audio
• Executable content Java

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Design tools

• Composer, Microsoft Word, FrontPage
• Generating HTML
• Generating Java applets Symantec, J 6.0
• Generating 3D content VR Creator, TrueSpace
• LP/CP tools need to interoperate with them!

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Alternative Content Formats

• VRML - now supported also by Java3D
• has links like in HTML
• has superior navigation
• has higher information density
• The future is 3D - the Nintendo generation grows
  up-)
• LP/CP tools should interoperate with the emerging
  3D Web

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Conclusion

• LP/CP comes late into the Internet Business
• it should get into fast growing or still emerging
  areas
• e-commerce
• intelligent search, knowledge processing, agents
• 3D Web, new Internet infrastructure