From bob@RATTLESNAKE.COM Mon Mar 11 11:14:11 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: bob@rattlesnake.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 11 Mar 2002 19:14:10 -0000 Received: (qmail 20428 invoked from network); 11 Mar 2002 19:08:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 11 Mar 2002 19:08:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO localhost) (140.186.114.245) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Mar 2002 19:08:46 -0000 Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.114) Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:09:15 +0000 (UTC) Message-Id: Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:09:15 +0000 (UTC) To: xod@sixgirls.org Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-reply-to: (message from Invent Yourself on Mon, 11 Mar 2002 13:36:12 -0500 (EST)) Subject: Re: [lojban] Programming Languages for Lojban References: From: "Robert J. Chassell" Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810561 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 bob@rattlesnake.com Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com