This paper presents a comprehensive introduction to the ELAN rule-based programming language. We describe the main features of the language, the ELAN environment, and introduce bibliographic references to various papers addressing foundations, implementation and applications of ELAN.

The ELAN system is an environment for specifying and prototyping constraint solvers, theorem provers and deduction systems in general. It also provides a framework for experimenting their combination. The ELAN language is based on rewriting logic and evaluation of labelled conditional rewrite rules. ELAN has two originalities with respect to several other algebraic languages, namely to handle n...

ELAN implements computational systems, a concept that combines two first class entities: rewrite rules and rewriting strategies. ELAN can be used either as a logical framework or to describe and execute deterministic as well as non-deterministic rule based processes. With the general goal to make precise a rewriting logic based semantics of ELAN, this paper has three contributions: a presentati...

What makes people want to go on with the effort required from life? Every epistemology of behavior must sooner or later cope with this basic question. The question is not so mysterious for nonhuman organisms, which presumably have built-in genetic programs instructing them to live as long as their physical machinery is able to function. But our species has a choice: With the development of cons...