yes it does... Natural language interfaces are a very hard area. Lots of failed attempts (e.g. MS EnglishQuery). This in fact is what attracted me to the area. If as a researcher I can help make NLIs more robust/usable, then that would be a 'result'.
> Has this really taken 18k lines of code?
Actually that is an approximate figure and includes test routines, comments, etc. Plus what is a line of lisp code?
A large amount of code is to support non-linguist authoring of the interface. So in fact I was able to patch the system for "shortest river" and "mean" in a jiffy.
> Stay put and knock this thing into shape
Yes that's what I will probably do. I toned down Anaphoric's web-site and will work with this system from more of a research perspective. I will try my best to avoid open sourcing it, but in the end circumstances may compel that move...
Comments
Hi Peter,
> this system has a looong way to go
yes it does... Natural language interfaces are a very hard area. Lots of failed attempts (e.g. MS EnglishQuery). This in fact is what attracted me to the area. If as a researcher I can help make NLIs more robust/usable, then that would be a 'result'.
> Has this really taken 18k lines of code?
Actually that is an approximate figure and includes test routines, comments, etc. Plus what is a line of lisp code? A large amount of code is to support non-linguist authoring of the interface. So in fact I was able to patch the system for "shortest river" and "mean" in a jiffy.
> Stay put and knock this thing into shape
Yes that's what I will probably do. I toned down Anaphoric's web-site and will work with this system from more of a research perspective. I will try my best to avoid open sourcing it, but in the end circumstances may compel that move...