Subject: Re: [lojban] Programming Languages for Lojban

From: "Robert J. Chassell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:09:15 +0000 (UTC)

I don't know a thing about parsers, LALR and yacc, AI and inference
engines, Lisp or Prolog. Hence, I am asking zero-level questions, ...

I understand. Basically, I am in your boat. But other people have
given me advice over the years, some of which I remember, and some of
which might be useful.... :-)

... I need an inference engine, and I think its internal language
should be Lojban.

Yes! I am told that some contemporary AI r Lisp text books contain
exercises on writing your own inference engine. If so, one of these
books might be a place to start.

It seems elegant to do as much of the coding in Lojban itself, but I
really have no idea how realistic that is.

The alternative is to provide a user interface to an inference engine
written in another language. That is useful, but won't take you very
far.

> I am looking forward to your write ups about turning Lojban into a
> humanly speakable programming language.

That's not me. I have almost no interest in speaking to computers. 

I did not make myself clear: I did not mean speaking to computers,
although I think that is attractive. What I meant was that Lojban is
not only a computer programming language, but a language that humans
can use for other things, such as for speaking about dinner.

Perhaps I should have written;

I am looking forward to your write ups about turning Lojban into a
programming language.

You went on to say:

... The back-introduction of (the computer language concept of)
strong typing into a human language is interesting, and might
provide benefits, although I have bristled at pedantry in the past.

Hmmm.... that is interesting. Could you elaborate more on this?

I would think a decent agent would understand both sentence formats. Some
sentences convey knowledge, while others issue orders.

You are right.

-- 
Robert J. Chassell [email-masked]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com